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OX I 

*i3<iA‘i I 

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American Medical 




Association 












■■ 


AN EXPOSURE AND A WARNING 



BY 


HENRY R. STRONG 













THE 


MACHINATIONS 

OF THE 

American Medical 
Association 


AN EXPOSURE 

-AND- 

A WA R NIN G 


BY henry r. strong 

h 



St. Louis, Mo. 

Stye National iruggiat 

1909 









LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 


FEB 26 1909 


Copyritrnt Entry 

3d-. 2.6, ROT 

CUSS ^ XXc, No, 
COPY B. 


Copyright, 1909, 

BY 

HENRY R. STRONG. 



• • • 


INTRODUCTORY... 



T HIS article was begun with the idea of publishing it 
as an editorial in the NATIONAL DRUGGIST, of 
which the writer is Editor and Proprietor. But it 
finally grew to such proportions as to render it unsuitable 
for that purpose, and hence its appearance in its present 
form. 

Its design is to expose what the writer sincerely believes 
to be a dangerous conspiracy, which, though primarily 
directed at the drug trade, will, if successful, affect the 
people as a whole, and in a most serious and far-reaching 
way; for it contemplates nothing short of an actual State 
Establishment of Medicine, the entire administration of 
which shall be committed absolutely into the hands of the 
officers of the American Medical Association. 

' Herbert Spencer in his “Social Statics” says: “There is 
a manifest analogy between committing to government- 
guardianship the physical health of the people, and com¬ 
mitting to it their moral health.” And he argues that the 
objections to the establishment of a system of religion 
apply with equal force to the establishment of a system of 
medicine. And Thomas Jefferson gave expression to similar 
views. 

Fortunately, the Constitution of our country provides 
against the establishment of religion, but there is no pro¬ 
hibition against the establishment of medicine; and we shall 
have such an establishment, and that soon, if the medical 
hierarchy are permitted to have their way. 

If there be those who are inclined to regard this state¬ 
ment as sensational, they are asked to withhold judgment 
until they have read this pamphlet through. 




The writer knows that the clique whose arrogance he has 
rebuked and whose machinations he has here disclosed will 
accuse him of “attacking the medical profession!” That is 
an old dodge of theirs, to which they always resort when¬ 
ever they are called to account for their misdoings. The 
writer gives way to no one in his regard for the earnest, 
faithful practitioner, striving to relieve human suffering and 
to save human life. And he repudiates the charge of 
attacking him. 

The fact is, the writer has not attacked anybody or any¬ 
thing—not even the clique. All that he has done is to 
show by the published utterances of men high up in the 
counsels of the American Medical Association that that 
Association, as it is now being conducted, is not the altru¬ 
istic, philanthropic institution which its leaders would make 
the public believe. 

If with this exposure there should come a reform of the 
Association, or that failing, its leaders are thwarted in their 
evil designs, the writer will feel that he has done a useful 
public service. 

If the clique here appear in an unenviable light, it is 
their fault, not his. The truth is, he has not made a single 
charge against them. They have indicted themselves. And 
if, in the words of Job of old, they accuse the writer of 
saying bitter things against them and of “looking narrowly 
into all their paths,” he will reply to them as Eliphaz, the 
Temanite, did to Job: 

“Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: 

Yea, thine own lips testify against thee.” 


li. R. S. 


St. Louis, January, 1909. 


CHAPTER I 


Impending Drug Legislation—The Activity 
of the Medical Politicians—The 
Duty of the Drug Trade 


Among the many subjects that will come up for consider¬ 
ation and action before the various State Legislatures now 
in session will be the governmental regulation of the manu¬ 
facture and sale of foods and drugs. 

The right on the part of the States to enact laws hav¬ 
ing this end in view is unquestioned. It is derived from 
what is called the “Police Power.” The maxim of this 
power is that every individual must submit to such re¬ 
straints in the exercise of his liberty or of his rights of 
property as may be required to remove or reduce the danger 
of the abuse of these rights on the part of those who are 
unskillful, careless or unscrupulous. 

Now, the drug trade (and we use the term broadly, 
so as to include the manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer) 
is neither better nor worse than other classes of human 
beings, and it should not be surprising, therefore, to find 
in each of its branches a certain number of individuals 
who are “unskillful, careless or unscrupulous,” and who 
can not be deterred from wrong-doing except by the fear 
of punishment. 

It is, therefore, not only the right, but it becomes the 
duty of the States to enact laws to protect the people at 

5 




large against these individual incompetents and malefac¬ 
tors;' and though such regulation may in its operations 
occasion annoyance, trouble and expense to the honest 
and the skillful, yet these ought to submit uncomplain¬ 
ingly to such petty inconveniences, out of regard for the 
interests of the people as a whole. 

It must not be forgotten that people are not always 
discriminating in their judgments, and often blame an 
entire class for the misdeeds of the few. Besides, the worst 
competition that any tradesman or professional man can 
have, always comes from the cheat or the quack. Hence 
it can be seen that, even viewing the matter from no other 
standpoint than that of the narrowest self-interest, it is 
the duty of every honest man in the drug trade to lend 
his support and encouragement to any well-intended and 
intelligent efforts, legislative or otherwise, to rid himself 
of competition with the ‘ ‘ unskillful, careless or unscru¬ 
pulous.” In fact, as the present writer has urged, 
time and again, druggists should take the initiative in 
all movements that have this most worthy purpose in 
view. It is to the credit of the drug trade that it has 
never been remiss in this particular. Every pharmacy 
law on our statute books is the work of druggists. These 
laws were placed there, not at the behests of the people, 
but upon the recommendation and earnest advocacy of 
pharmacists, who thus have shown that they were willing 
to submit to all reasonable restraints upon their liberty of 
individual action for the advancement and honor of their 
profession, and out of regard for the health and lives of 
the people. 

Not only this, but druggists have invariably lent their 
valuable aid to the authorities in the ferreting out and in 
the prosecution of offenders within their own ranks; no 
less an authority than Dr. Thos. Darlington, Commissioner 
of Health of the city of New York, only a few weeks ago, 
having testified to the earnestness and effectiveness of their 
co-operation in this respect. As we learn from the 

6 




Brooklyn Times, this distinguished official “congratu¬ 
lated the druggists on their determined stand to wipe out 
cocaine and other evil habits, and he showed how, by such 
co-operation, the-death rate had been materially lowered.” 
He spoke, also, of their aid in the exposure to the public 
of “the so-called consumption and other fake cures that 
at one time flooded the market.” 

Those who are familiar with conditions in the drug 
trade know that all that Dr. Darlington has said is true, not 
only as regards the druggists of the city of New York, 
but throughout the country. The only thing remarkable 
about Dr. Darlington’s tribute is that it comes from a 
physician, for it is not often that a member of his profession 
is fair and frank enough to give druggists credit for an 
honest effort in any direction. 

Nor is this willingness to submit to legal restraints 
and to aid in the punishment of the vicious, confined to 
the retail branch of the trade, for both the National Whole¬ 
sale Druggists’ Association and the Proprietary Association 
have denounced the marketing, as medicines, of articles 
that are likely to be used as alcoholic beverages, or which 
contain so large a quantity of narcotic drugs that they 
may contribute to the formation of drug habits among 
those who take them. 

It might be proper to state in this connection that the 
Proprietary Association represents but a small propor¬ 
tion of medicine manufacturers, since it numbers only about 
two hundred out of a total of over two thousand such 
manufacturers in the entire country. However, it is the 
only organization of proprietary manufacturers; and it 
thus appears that the representative associations of retailers, 
wholesalers and manufacturers have all expressed them¬ 
selves in unmistakable terms on this question, and, more¬ 
over, have put themselves on record as favoring laws 
that will eradicate the evils they have proclaimed against. 

This does not, of course, mean that they will open their 
mouths like unfledged birdlings and swallow unquestion- 


7 


ingly any and every proposed law which may be labeled a 
“pure food and drug bill.” It is said that Madame 
Roland once exclaimed, “0, liberty! how many crimes are 
committed in thy name!” And the drug trade of the 
country, in the light of the experiences of the past three 
or four years, can with reason make the same exclamation 
as regards ‘ 4 pure foods and drugs. 

It must be admitted, however, that the food and drug 
laws that have so far been placed on the statute books 
are, in the main, fair and just. Indeed, when one con¬ 
siders that the subject is a purely technical one and that 
from the very nature of the case our legislators cannot 
be very well informed thereon, it is a tribute to their intelli¬ 
gence and to their devotion to the trust confided to them 
that no very serious blunders have been made. And espe¬ 
cially is this so in view of the campaign of falsehood and 
deception, of denunciation, vituperation and abuse, which, 
during the period named, has been waged upon the drug 
trade of the country in all its branches. This abuse and 
vilification, these misrepresentations and falsehoods, did 
not proceed from ignorant and misguided zealots, as is 
usually the case in the so-called reform movements, which 
from time to time sweep over every country. These fig¬ 
ured in the crusade to a greater or less extent, of 
course; but, strange to say, those who were mainly re¬ 
sponsible for the injustice—those most clamorous for 
undue restraints on pharmacy, belong to a sister pro¬ 
fession—that of medicine; and unless something inter¬ 
venes to change the situation, it will be at the instigation 
and by the lobbying of these same interests • that bills for 
new laws and for amending the present statutes, all im¬ 
posing unreasonable restrictions on the drug trade, will be 
introduced and pushed at the present sessions of the 
various legislatures. 

It is because we believe that the protection of the public 
from the dangers of impure drugs is but a cloak to hide 
certain schemes of power and profit on the part of a small 


8 


clique in the medical profession, that we wish to impress 
upon the drug trade, in the most earnest and urgent fashion 
of which we are capable, the importance of awakening to 
the gravity of the situation, in order that they may fore¬ 
stall the insolent encroachment on their rights which is 
now impending. 

Indeed, it would be the part of wisdom for the drug 
trade to take the initiative in a movement to perfect the 
present statutes, and to bring them as nearly as possible 
into conformity with the National law; and, having done 
this, to see to it that similar laws are passed in all those 
States, which, so far, have not legislated on the subject. 
In this way can they best subvert the evil purposes of 
the designing doctors to whom we have referred, and of 
whom we shall have much to say later on. 

Let it be understood that we do not charge the medical 
profession as a whole with these unworthy motives and 
unscrupulous schemes. Indeed , it is one 0 } our objections 
to the role that medicine has been playmg in the matter, 
that those who have taken the leading parts do not really 
represent the rank and file of the profession, but have pre¬ 
tended to wield an authority for which they hold no com¬ 
mission. 

The attempt thus to impose on the people and our 
legislatures by trying to make it appear that they represent 
a united profession is cunningly expressed by Dr. C. A. L. 
Reed, Chairman of the Committee on Legislation of the 
American Medical Association in his report to the Associa¬ 
tion in 1905. He said: “The championship of a measure 
by your committee is accepted by Congress as the champion¬ 
ship of the American Medical Association, which, being the 
representative organization of the medical profession in 
the United States, makes its voice (that is, the Commit¬ 
tee’s voice), in effect, the voice of the entire profes¬ 
sion.” 

A similarly audacious bluff was played by this same 
man (who, be it remarked, is probably above all others 

9 


most responsible for the political activity of the Associa¬ 
tion) in 1907, at the time the President’s order was promul- . 
gated, giving the medical corps of the navy control of the 
relief ships. At that time a telegram sent by Dr. Reed to 
the surgeon-general of the navy, was published in the news¬ 
papers so generally and simultaneously, as to warrant 
the presumption of its having been given out to the asso¬ 
ciated press at Cincinnati, Dr. Reed’s home. The tele¬ 
gram was as follows: 

“Your demand and the President’s order giving the medical corps 
of the navy actual control where it has actual responsibility, com¬ 
mands the approval of the one hundred and forty thousand 
physicians of the United States.” 

When it is remembered that even at that time the Asso¬ 
ciation only claimed to have twenty-seven thousand mem¬ 
bers, and that even of that number but a mere handful 
had any voice in the representation assumed by him, it is 
hard to understand how he possessed the right to speak 
for the “one hundred and forty thousand physicians of the 
United States.” The fact is that even at this date the 
claimed membership of the American Medical Association 
is but little more than one-fifth of the total number of 
physicians in the United States, and it would have been 
impossible for the clique to have “corailed” even that 
many, but for the work done by the “Walking Dele¬ 
gate,” Dr. McCormack, who junkets the country at the 
Association’s expense, practically coercing those doctors 
into the Association who cannot be persuaded to join. 

A considerable number of those who are members of the 
Association are antagonistic to the attitude and actions of 
the ring; and a much greater proportion, as in all large 
organizations, take no further interest in the Association 
than to pay their dues. Hence the claim that these ring¬ 
leaders really voice the sentiment of the profession at 
large is the sheerest presumption. 


10 


CHAPTER II 


The American Medical Association Adopts 
the Tactics of the Labor Unions 


For physicians as a body we have no other feelings 
than those of profound respect. As in every class of human 
beings, there are good and bad men among them—capable 
and incompetent ones. The good and capable ones go 
about their own business, doing the best they can, with 
nothing and no one to exploit. The schemes to which we 
have referred are the projects of a medical oligarchy— 
of the bureaucratic ring, which is just as ready to exploit 
its own profession or its own association, as it is to exploit 
the public, when it sees a chance for the acquisition of 
power and profit. 

We do not even know that we have any particular per¬ 
sonal feeling against the men who compose the arrogant 
clique that at present controls the votes and coffers of 
organized medicine, except as they represent a vicious 
principle of organization run riot. 

Human nature is the same wherever it is found. Medi¬ 
cal men are no better and no worse than the rest. Given 
a powerful organization of men—even of physicians, whose 
ostensible objects are science and humanity—especially 
where the controlling power is centralized and the members 
at large practically disfranchised, and there will always, 
sooner or later, develop a corrupt oligarchy, which becomes 
more and more despotic in rule, intolerant of criticism, 
greedy for power and unscrupulous in obtaining it, until 
at last it delivers the organization over to dishonor and public 


n 






obloquy; and then comes the revulsion and the repudiation, 
in which, unfortunately, the innocent members have to 
suffer for the sins of the gang. 

With the inevitableness of natural laws in their applica¬ 
tion to class interests, the American Medical Association, 
laudable enough in its original purposes, has gradually 
gathered to itself and is now exercising, an arrogant authority 
and control over medicine, until its boasted organization 
has become degraded to the mere level of a Trades Union, 
and an exceedingly intolerant type of Union at that. 
Under its blighting influence, individual opinion has been 
strangled and personal liberty burlesqued, so that the 
doctor of to-day, in spite of the traditional sentiment that 
surrounds him, stands before the public in the unenviable 
position of a Union laborer, with whom no business can 
be done except through the lodge; who strikes at the 
bidding of the walking delegate, and who is prohibited 
from buying, selling, handling or even reading anything 
that does not bear the Union label. 

The closed shop is one of the conspicuous feat¬ 
ures of this Medical Unionism. No one can work 
that does not have the card, and there is but one 
way to get the card, and that is, to conform to the 
arbitrary requirements of the Central Union. To 
those who do not so conform the Union applies 
the derogatory epithets of “quack” and “irregular,” 
which are equivalent to the term “scab” in Trades 
Union lingo. To the public the word “quack” signifies 
an ignorant man pretending to practice that of which he 
knows nothing. To the organized portion of the medical 
profession, its meaning is different and far wider; it means 
any practitioner that is not in the Union, regardless of his 
character or qualifications. 

A year or so ago, there died in the city of St. Louis one 
of the foremost surgeons of the world. lie was not only 
an operator of the highest order, but a tireless and ex¬ 
haustive worker in the field of original surgery. His 

_ 12 


fame was co-extensive with civilization. No charges 
were ever brought against him which in the remotest de¬ 
gree reflected on his qualifications as a surgeon. His skill 
was acknowledged even by his enemies. He was never accused 
of having done anything unbecoming the true physician. 
“The head and front of his offending had this extent—no 
more!” He dared to think! He refused to mold his opinions 
and to govern his actions by the arbitrary rules which 
those he knew to be his inferiors had set up for his govern¬ 
ance! In other words, he could not regard the Code of 
Ethics of the American Medical Association as being in¬ 
spired, or as having a binding authority on him where his 
judgment and conscience told him it was wrong. And so, 
several years ago, on account of some trivial infraction of 
this sacred “Code,” a movement was started to expel him 
from the local association, which was only defeated by his 
hastily sending in his resignation. As membership in the 
American Medical Association is dependent upon member¬ 
ship in the local and State societies, he was not eligible 
to membership in the National organization. And so, 
though he had saved thousands of lives, though 
other physicians had profited by his matchless art, 
this brilliant surgeon, this great and able man was, 
during all these years, an outcast—a medical “scab,” 
not recognized as “ethical” or worthy of fellow¬ 
ship in that body of physicians banded together in 
the American Medical Association. 

This case is but a single example of its kind. There 
are hundreds of others. We refer to it, specifically, only 
as an illustration and because we knew the man and were 
personally cognizant of the great wrong that, under the 
guise of ‘ ‘ ethics, ’ ’ was done to genius and worth. 

This negative, prohibitory side of Medical Unionism 
has its positive counterpart in the unionistic methods by 
which these doctors “maintain wages” and endeavor to 
protect themselves from the natural penalties of incompe¬ 
tence and bad judgment. Price schedules are nowadays 


13 



established by almost all medical societies, and those who 
work for less than the “scheduled prices” are treated in 
the same way that Union laborers are dealt witli for a 
similar offense. Fines, suspension, and, ultimately, expul¬ 
sion with all the consequences that follow therefrom, are 
the penalties for ministering to the sick at a rate lower 
than the established wage. The unfortunate individual 
who has not the price is thus compelled to die without 
medical attention, or become an object of public charity. 

Nor, as it appears, is there any way by which these 
conditions can be reached by the arm of the law. A test 
case of the kind, only a few months ago, went up to the 
Supreme Court of Iowa from the county of Bremer in that 
State. Several members of the Bremer County Society 
had formed such a “wage schedule,” as we have described. 
Several of its members were indicted for the offense under 
the Anti-trust laws of the State. When the case came to 
trial the accused physicians pleaded as a defense the right of 
“labor” to organize for protection, and the plea was sus¬ 
tained by the trial court. The case was appealed to the 
Supreme Court which, in a recent decision, upheld the 
decision of the lower court. And thus it has been 
judicially determined that medical combinations 
are Labor Unions, and cannot be reached by the 
anti-trust laws of the States. 

If a number of farmers, druggists or grocers, or other 
tradesmen come together and fix the price of the commodi¬ 
ties they sell, indeed, if, as was decided in the famous 
Indianapolis case, druggists agree among themselves— 
not to establish—but simply to maintain the prices which 
the manufacturers of patent medicines or other trade- 
marked articles fix for their products, they are guilty of 
a criminal conspiracy. But doctors seem to be above the 
law! There is no restraint on their avarice or cupidity. 
If the members of one of their associations combine to 
increase the fee for their services, they are acting within 
their legal rights. There is no limit to the amount they 


14 


may charge. And thus the protection which a beneficent 
government intended to throw around the wage-earners, 
the laborers in our factories and mines, to shield them from 
the aggressions of greedy capital, has been so perverted 
from its true purpose as to encourage these sham humani¬ 
tarians, these boasted philanthropists, these smug preten¬ 
ders to ethics and morality, in as cold-blooded a scheme 
of extortion as ever banded a lot of freebooters together 
in a predatory enterprise. 

That this Bremer County case is not an isolated 
example, that this brutal exhibition of inhumanity is 
not confined to a few individuals or to a single county, 
is proved (if proof were needed) by a circular letter sent 
out in March, 1908, by the Bremer County Medical Society 
to the other associations of doctors in the State of Iowa. 
This letter stated that it had cost the County Society three 
thousand dollars for its defense, and on the inference that 
they were fighting for a principle in the maintenance of 
which all other organization physicians were vitally inter¬ 
ested, they requested contributions to a fund to reimburse 
themselves for their outlay. 

This circular letter, after a recital of the facts which 
led up to the indictment, contains the following language: 

“The sole reason for the agitation leading up to the indictments, 
was the alleged act of the society in adopting a fee bill, as has been 
done in most of the counties of the State, the schedule of fees 
averaging considerably lower than in many counties. The principle 
involved in these cases, as you readily see, is whether physicians 
have the legal right to adopt a fee bill. * * * The result of 

this whole matter thus far has been favorable to the medical pro¬ 
fession, and every physician in the State (at least those who are 
members of medical societies), are directly benefited by the holdings 
of the courts. * * * It seems to the local society only right that 

we call your attention to the matter, and to indicate that any assistance 
you may feel disposed to render will be gratefully received.” 

This remarkable document acknowledges that “most 
of the counties of the State have adopted fee bills,” and 
that all physicians, and especially “those who are members 
of medical societies” are vitally interested, and, therefore, 
ought to share the expense of securing this judicial deter- 


15 


mination that a medical society under the law is a “Labor 
Union.” 

It bears the signatures of Drs. W. A. Rohlf and 0. L 
Chaffee, committee. Drs. Rohlf and Chaffee were indicted 
at the November term of the Bremer District Court on a 
charge of “conspiracy” for the alleged refusal to assist a 
certain doctor who happened not to be a member of the 
Union and who is said to have refused to be bound by the 
fee bill, in performing an operation on one of that doctor’s 
patients. The same circular letter quoted above refers to this 
indictment, and says, that it is also of vital interest to 
organized medicine, since it “involves the right of a physi¬ 
cian to refuse to work with another physician.” 

Hon. Chas. W. Miller, Representative in the Iowa House 
of Representatives from Bremer County, Chairman of the 
Democratic State Executive Committee and the editor of 
the Waverly Democrat, was, by the local Medical Trust, 
considered responsible for the indictment and prosecution 
of its representatives. It is a fact, that he exposed them in 
his newspaper and denounced their unholy conspiracy 
without mincing his words. On an evening subsequent to 
the indictments, Mr. Miller was walking on the streets of 
his town, when someone skulked along behind him to a 
dark place in the street and there assaulted him. The 
grand jury of the county afterwards returned an indict¬ 
ment for an assault with attempt to kill against a member 
of the local medical society for the offense described. 
And so it seems that the man who has the temerity 
to expose and denounce the cold-hearted brutality 
of these organization doctors does so at the peril 
of his life. 

The Iowa State Medical Association at its meeting in 
Des Moines, in May, 1908, took official cognizance of the 
Bremer County situation and appropriated three hundred 
dollars to help the Bremer County Society to pay the 
expenses that it had incurred in establishing by a legal 
tribunal the fact that it was in truth a “Labor Union.” 


16 


At the same time the Association passed a resolution in 
which it endorsed “the action of the Bremer County Medi¬ 
cal Society, in their efforts to maintain their professional 
rights,” and recommended that County Societies through¬ 
out Iowa “extend financial aid to the members of the 
Bremer County Medical Society, in order to reimburse 
them for the large sums expended by them in the defense 
of this case.” 

The Iowa Medical Journal in discussing the contri¬ 
bution said, editorially, in its issue of July 15th, 1908 : 
“Bremer County has borne the brunt of a great battle, 
the results of which are as of much interest to every man 
(physician?) in every other county in the State as in Bremer 
County. The large expenditure of the physicians of Bremer 
County has laid a burden upon the members of our own 
organization there that should be lightened by subscrip¬ 
tions from every county in the State.” 

This Bremer County case is commented on thus at 
length, because it proves by the evidence of the organized 
doctors themselves that “fee bills” have been adopted in 
“most of the counties of Iowa,” and that there is nothing 
unusual about the practice. 

The Journal of the American Medical Association, the 
official organ of that Association, Volume L, No. 1, referred 
editorially to this case, approving the establishment of 
“fee bills” on the part of the association doctors. In 
Volume L, No. 11 of the same journal, is an abstract from 
an article which appeared in the Journal of the Minnesota 
State Medical Association, February 15th, in which we 
learn that Dr. Hohf, in the original article, “gives in detail 
a plan proposed by the committee of the Eighth District 
Medical Society, which includes a ‘fee bill.’ ’’ In the same 
journal, Volume XLIX, No. 13, we learn that Dr. Wm. B. 
Patton in some remarks before the Ohio Medical Associa¬ 
tion, “after paying due consideration to the altruistic side 
of the profession and the practice of the individual mem¬ 
bers, asked consideration to the premise that it is time for 


17 


every county society in the State to adopt and live up to 
a modern medical fee bilL ,, He goes on to tell us that his 
County Society adopted a fee bill in June, 1906, and states 
that, at a meeting of the Hamilton County Society “a 
grievance committee was appointed, to whom all com¬ 
plaints of violation of the ‘fee bill’ should be referred 
for investigation.” And he tells us “that while it is too 
early to know what such- a committee will accomplish, the 
very fact that it exists ought to have a tendency to stilfen 
the back bones of some of the weaker brethren.” 

Occupying the leading place in the Journal of the Ameri¬ 
can Medical Association, Volume XLVII, No. 14, there is 
an article on the subject of medical fees by Dr. W. 0. 
Bridges, of Omaha, Neb. In discussing this question, he 
advocated the adoption of fee bills by the county societies 
throughout the country, and said, “Organization, then, 
must be the solution of the question. The County and 
District Societies should do as much in this regard as they 
do in every other, and I am not so sure that a move in this 
direction by the State Society for a minimum schedule, 
which has been adopted by all its component parts, would 
be in the right direction.” 

We think we have said enough on this subject 
to show that the establishment of fee bills is 
common all over the country, and we have proved 
the fact by the mouthpiece of organized medicine 
itself. 



18 


CHAPTER III 


Medical Black Lists and Defense Funds 
The Physicians’ Union on a Strike 


So closely do these Medical Unions follow the methods 
of Trades Unions, that in some cases they have even gone 
to the length of instituting “Black Lists” containing the 
names of those who owe for medical attention, and the 
rules of the Unions forbid one doctor from rendering service 
to a person who is in debt to another doctor until an under¬ 
standing has been reached with the other doctor and his 
consent has been given. 

We do not know to what extent this practice of making 
‘ ‘ Black Lists ’ ’ obtains, but that it is more or less general 
is evident from the frequent allusion to the same, which 
we find in the association organs. A specific instance of 
the kind is found in the city of St. Louis. The St. Louis 
physicians have a “Dead Beat Directory.” It contains the 
names of fifteen thousand persons who, from one cause or 
another, have failed to pay their doctor’s bills. The book 
bears the title of the “St. Louis Medical Credit Guide,” 
and is furnished to physicians, dentists and undertakers. 
It is kept up to date by the issuance of a monthly sheet 
and will be revised once a year. The fifteen thousand 
names are chosen from lists used by a collection agency 
for three years in collecting the bills of five hundred physi¬ 
cians. The book also contains the names of seventy 
thousand persons who are “good,” in the sense that 
they have property and are responsible. 

We read in the St. Louis Republic of December 13th, 
1908, that a similar directory is in use in Moberly, Mo. 


19 





We print herewith from the Medical World , Articles of 
Agreement of the local association at Duquesne, Pa., 
which were adopted June 13th, 1905, and which the editor 
of that journal recommends as a model for other societies 
to follow. He quotes Dr. F. J. Madden, a member of the 
Duquesne Society, as saying that this “Information List” 
has saved the physicians many dollars and has proved an 
entire success. The agreement is as follows: 

“ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT. 

“Agreement made between the Duquesne Medical Society and the 
members thereof, as follows: 

“We, the undersigned members of the Duquesne Medical Society, 
of Duquesne, State of Pennsylvania, hereby agree and bind ourselves, 
subject to the penalties named herein: 

“First. Each member shall submit to the Secretary of this 
Society the names of persons who have persistently refused or neglected 
to settle their accounts for medical services rendered within a reason¬ 
able period, and such other names from time to time as each member 
may think to his interest. 

“Second. The names submitted as per section first shall be 
arranged alphabetically, to be known as the ‘Information List/ and 
each member of this Society shall be assigned a number by which he 
shall be known in this List. 

“Third. Every member of this Society shall be furnished a copy 
of the ‘Information List.’ All names reported by the Secretary shall 
be added or removed as reported. 

“Fourth. It shall be the duty of each member of this Society to 
inform any person whose name appears on the ‘Information List/ 
applying to them for medical services, that they owe an account to 
the physician or physicians, reporting their names. Exceptions to 
this rule may be made as follows: In case of emergency the physician 
applied to may render immediate medical aid to the extent of one 
visit to such person, providing the physician rendering the • service 
demands and receives cash payment for the services, pending the 
applicant’s satisfactory arrangement with the physician having re¬ 
ported his name to the Society. 

“Fifth. The person so reported shall make application to the 
physician or physicians reporting his name, pay the amount due, or 
make satisfactory arrangements for the payment thereof. Then it 
shall be the duty of the physician reporting said person to issue a cer¬ 
tificate on the form prescribed by this Society, certifying that he had 
paid the account or made other satisfactory arrangement for payment 
of the same. In this event, it shall be the privilege of any physician 
to whom said person shall apply and present said certificate, to render 
medical services. 

“Sixth. In the event of the person receiving a certificate of satis¬ 
factory arrangement for settlement of his account failing to comply 
with his agreement made in order to receive said certificate, the name 


20 


shall again be placed on the ‘Information List/ and each and every 
member of this Society shall refuse absolutely to render further medical 
services until the terms of said agreement have been complied with or 
a new certificate issued. 

“Seventh. The following form of certificate shall be used for the 
purpose set forth in Section 6: 


Certificate of the Duquesne Medical Society. 

This certifies that Mr.has this day 

agreed to settle his account of $.by making payment 

on the.day of each and every.. until said 

account is settled in full. 

Signed.. M. D 

Date.. 19. 

“Eighth. It shall be the duty of each and every member of this 
Society to render statements to his patrons quarterly on the first of 
January, April, July and October of each year. Privilege is hereby 
granted to render monthly statements. 

“Ninth. It shall be compulsory upon each and every member of 
this Society to comply with the conditions of this agreement, also to 
abide by the minimum fees as set forth in the fee bill adopted, also 
the Code of Ethics; and upon trial and conviction before the Censors 
of the Duquesne Medical Society pay a fine of fifty dollars; or expul¬ 
sion from the Society shall be imposed upon any member who wilfully 
or negligently refuses to comply with the conditions herein set forth.” 

It was precisely this very principle carried to its 
logical extremity and worked out in the cruder 
methods of a less cultured class which gave rise, a 
few years ago, to those disgraceful conditions in 
the city of Chicago during the teamsters* strike, 
when funeral processions were assaulted, hearses 
and carriages stoned, and their drivers and occu¬ 
pants turned out and beaten, conditions which so 
outraged public sentiment that they served more than 
anything else to bring about an end to the strike. 
The tactics of these teamsters were palpably brutal, 
but they had at least the excuse of ignorance and 
lack of refined training, a defense the medical societies are 
not able to put up. The refinement of brutality embodied 
in this movement of the medical societies is, therefore, not 
less, but much greater than that of the teamsters* union. 

21 









There is another phase of this matter which must strike 
the reader, and that is, how a doctor with any self-respect 
can surrender his individuality and liberty of action after 
this fashion. Especially is such a concerted action by 
physicians reprehensible when one considers the peculiarly 
intimate relations which the doctor holds toward human 
life, of which, by the way, these high priests of medicine 
are so fond of prating. He stands in somewhat the same 
relation to the public as does the clergyman; and while 
it is true, of course, that both clergyman and doctor are 
obliged to have regard to the “hire” by which they pay 
living expenses, yet what would be thought of the clergy¬ 
man who refused to perform the burial service over a fellow- 
man simply because the deceased had failed to pay his 
church dues, or had left no money from which the clergy¬ 
man could extort a fee? 

Only last year was witnessed the edifying spectacle of 
the Physicians’ Union on a strike for the purpose of coercing 
the insurance companies of the country to pay the schedule 
price of S5.00 for examination fees, and the insurance 
companies had to come to terms, too. This strike was not 
a local affair, but extended throughout the country and 
had the support of all the association organs. The Journal 
0 } the American Medical Association was, probably, the 
instigator of the strike, for, as early as May 5th, 1906, 
editorial reference is made to the efforts on the part of 
the insurance companies to reduce the fee to $3.00, and 
the question is asked, “are we now sufficiently united to 
resist successfully such arbitrary declaration on the part of 
the wealthy corporations, or shall we continue to submit 
and take the pittance that is offered? We certainly believe 
that we are so united; at least, in most localities, and that 
we should not submit. As we have recorded from week 
to week in our news columns, several county societies 
have already taken action and have refused to accept the 
new rate. I 11 some instances, every physician of the county 
has signed an agreement not to examine for the old line 


22 


companies for less than the fee received in the past. As 
one put it, if we accept this forty per cent reduction now, 
how soon will there be another similar cut? We pub¬ 
lish in our news columns,” continues the editor, “a 
protest and a plea on this subject from Dr. J. N. McCormack. 
Having traveled over the country and having come in close 
touch with the medical profession, he knows the conditions 
and the sentiments of the medical profession, and he be¬ 
lieves that a united resistance should be made everywhere. 
From the numerous letters we have received, we believe 
that he is right, and that action should be taken immediately 
in every county society in the country.” 

The fixing of the fee by the organizers of medicine, 
with its penal provisions of ostracism and ultimate expul¬ 
sion for violation, would be less open to criticism if it were 
done frankly and consistently, with no pretense of any 
other motives or considerations than those of Trade Unions. 
As the Medical Sentinel , an independent journal, signi¬ 
ficantly says: 

y 

“ Organized labor believes in physicians fixing a regular scale of 
prices and abiding by it, under one condition—that the doctors join 
the local federation of labor and pay dues to that organization. The 
labor unionists contend that the physicians must submit their scales 
of prices and rules to the Central Labor Council to be ratified by that 
body. Otherwise the members of the labor unions will not do business. 
As one of the labor unionists says, ‘If the doctors want to get into 
the union game on the square, let them buy a stack of chips before 
the deal is made, and not try to play an extra hand.’” 

But there is no indication that the medical bosses have 
any desire or intention of doing this. With a character¬ 
istic egotism and presumption of superiority, they wish 
to be a law unto themselves, and to have a different law 
for the “common people.” 

Now, we would not appear as denying, even to members 
of the Medical Unions, the right to demand a fair and rea¬ 
sonable charge for the services they render. It is admitted 
that their incomes on the average are small, and that they 
come in contact with “dead-beats,” just as people in every 
other business or profession are compelled to do. We 


23 


will not even deny their right to make a ‘ ‘ black list ’ ’ and 
to refuse to attend any whose names appear thereon, if 
they desire to go to this extreme. But we do protest, 
that such action on their part does not accord very 
well with the eternal and persistent proclamations 
of philanthropy and humanitarianism, which their 
official organs are so fond of making! Their conduct 
in this respect only goes to show the insincerity 
and hypocrisy of such altruistic professions and 
bids the citizen to look behind them for some 
ulterior purpose. 

Association physicians, no more than those who are 
without the pale, are not immune from damage suits for 
incompetence or mal-practice. Occasionally some indi¬ 
vidual who thinks he has been'injured by an ignorant or 
vicious practitioner, and unaware of the obstacles to a 
fair hearing of a case of the kind, brings suit for damages. 
In such cases, the individual physician is at no expense in 
defending himself, for there are society defense funds and 
physicians’ defense companies which provide the money 
to fight all suits for mal-practice, which make it practically 
hopeless for a layman of small means to mulct any of 
these association doctors in damages caused by their care¬ 
lessness, incompetence or criminality; and especially is 
this so, when the proverbial impossibility of getting other 
physicians to testify as experts in such cases in behalf of 
the plaintiff is taken into consideration. 

The way these defense funds are created and conducted 
may be seen from the following account taken from the 
Michigan Stale Medical Journal, the official organ of the 
doctors’ association of that State: 

“The first year a special assessment of $3.00 is to be paid. After 
the first year, dues are to be increased one dollar, this one dollar (col¬ 
lected with the county and State dues, as at present) to be sent by 
the county secretary with the State dues and State society in the 
special defense fund. Every member in good standing will then be 
defended in any suit which may be brought against him, either by his 
local attorney or by the firm of attorneys retained by the society. 
The control of the fund will be in the hands of a committee, either 


24 


elected by the House of Delegates or appointed by the President, some 
provisions for oversight by the Council of the State Society being pro¬ 
vided. These details remain to be worked out.” 

The question of a Defense Fund came up for discussion 
before the Minnesota State Medical Association. That 
association, while approving of the principle of the plan, 
doubted its right to impose the necessary assessment upon 
its members, and referred the matter to the consideration 
of the county societies for action. In support of the plan, 
it was urged that in those States in which it has been adopted, 
there has been a considerable diminution in mal-practice 
suits, which, however, may simply mean that the public 
has been coerced by the organized strength of the medical 
men into passive submission to great wrongs at their hands. 
It seems not to have dawned on the minds of these 
association doctors that such a fund will act as 
a direct encouragement to carelessness, if not to 
criminality, for it takes away from the members of 
these associations the sense of individual responsi¬ 
bility. Knowing that they will not be at the ex¬ 
pense of defending suits for mal-practice, the incom¬ 
petent and vicious members will become more 
reckless than they otherwise might be, to the 
possible sacrifice of the health and lives of the 
unfortunates who go to them for medical treat¬ 
ment. 

The Journal of the American Medical Association in an 
editorial in its issue of September 22d, 1906, entitled “Pri¬ 
vate Gain vs. Professional Benefits,” takes the Medical 
Record of New York (an independent medical journal) 
most severely to task for what it calls “the attacks of that 
journal on the American Medical Association.” It reminds 
its owners, Messrs. Wm. Wood & Co., a well known and long 
established firm of medical book publishers, that it is rated at 
from three to five hundred thousand dollars, all of which 
came out of the medical profession, and warns them against 
allowing any future criticisms to appear in their journal, 


25 


mildly threatening that their books will be boycotted if 
they fail to desist. In conclusion the Journal says, “we 
again suggest to Win. Wood & Co. that they think over this 
whole matter, that they consider whether it becomes a firm, 
which has been able to amass a fortune from the support given 
it by the medical profession, to allow its publication to oppose 
a movement endorsed by the best (?) element in that profession, 
a movement inaugurated for the furtherance of honesty, and 
for the benefit of the profession and the public.” This senti¬ 
ment has been echoed in several of the other organization 
journals and was the subject of a resolution by the West 
Virginia State Medical Association, which, as we learn 
from the Journal of the American Medical Association, 
Volume XLVII, No. 19, page 1575, “Resolved, That we 
express the hope that the time will soon come when the 
American Medical Association will be in position to publish 
a large part of the medical books used by physicians.” 

And, finally, their unionistic tactics are seen in their 
attempts to influence and create class legislation in their 
own interests. In this respect they are wiser and more clever 
than their prototypes, the Trades Unions, for they recognize 
the importance of controlling the political channels of power; 
they have the necessary intelligence and the organized 
brains with which to do it, and they do, do it. Of this, 
however, we shall have more to say in another place. 


26 


CHAPTER IV 


The Rise and Development of the Medical 

Trust 


Following the same natural laws yet another stage, a 
Union, whether it be a Trades Union or a Professional 
Union, when it becomes large enough and controls a suf¬ 
ficient number of tributary organizations, is, perforce, 
obliged to seek other worlds to conquer, and the arrogant 
and bloated “clique” that is invariably by this time in 
control of the union of unions, begins to essay the course 
and role of a monopoly, reaching out after everything that 
can possibly be brought within its “sphere of influence,” 
and implacably striking at everything that stands in the 
way of its monopolistic ambitions. 

At this point the American Medical Association has, 
within the past four or five years, arrived. Up to that 
time it had, however distasteful to its controlling clique, 
tolerated and even affected to profit by the frank and 
friendly criticisms of the independent medical press—indeed 
in those days there was little else in the field except an 
independent medical press. But, no sooner did it see the 
completion of its own unionistic control of its member¬ 
ship (made doubly sure by the delivery of all the latter’s 
voting power into the central office), and decide to set out 
on a scheme of monopoly, than it promptly repudiated the 
medical press that had originated and fostered the organi¬ 
zation, withdrew all State association journals from the 
American Medical Editors’ Association, created other State 


27 




journals, and started a separate “Editors’ Association; 
and having thus an organ for nearly every State, began in 
good earnest a campaign of abuse and attempted exter¬ 
mination of the independent journals. The leaders 
became intolerant even of suggestion and advice. 
Any intimation that they were not infallible, any 
show of dissent on the part of any individual 
physician or an independent journal brought forth 
hot denunciations from the clique on the person 
or publication guilty of such audacious lese-maj- 
este. 

All this was the prelude to and has marked the 
progress of the great American Medical Trust. 

If any one doubts the intent of the medical ring in 
Chicago to establish a trust in things medical and pharma¬ 
ceutical, he has only to piece together the various policies 
and activities of the ring and see how they fit into one colos¬ 
sal and well-planned scheme of monopoly, whose ramifica¬ 
tions reach into every branch of trade and public sendee 
that can by the farthest stretch of the imagination be 
regarded as tributary to the modern conception of medicine. 
One by one this octopus has laid and is laying its 
stealthy tentacles upon every such collateral call¬ 
ing, bent upon absorbing or gaining control of it; 
and, following the example of other monopolies, 
where it can neither absorb nor control, it at¬ 
tempts to kill off, either by legislating it out of 
existence, or by strangling it to death. 

An example of this spirit has already been seen in the 
attitude of the Association organ toward the publishing 
firm of Wm. Wood & Co. There was no question raised of 
the merits of this firm’s books. The fact that so many of 
them had been bought by physicians is proof of their 
excellence. It was simply a question, first, of administer¬ 
ing exemplary punishment to the company for daring to 
criticise the policies and conduct of the ring; and, second, 
of obtaining and exercising a monopoly in the publishing 

28 


of medical books, as set forth in the quotation cited from 
the Journal. The Association has already undertaken 
the publication of a medical directory, in which there are 
several very arbitrary and monopolistic features. And, 
as we shall presently see, it has broached the question of 
establishing a chain of pharmacies throughout the country, 
to be under its control, the purpose being to drive out of 
business those druggists who refuse to bow submissively to 
its edicts—a course which would necessarily and logically 
end in the Association going into the manufacturing busi¬ 
ness and furnishing the medicines that would be dispensed 
by its pharmacies. 

In truly strategic system, the ring first built up a gigan¬ 
tic and well-ordered machine, the control of which, by a 
cunningly executed coup, it induced the Association to 
surrender to a coterie of choice spirits, such as manipulate 
the wires in every powerful corporation. 

There is no longer even any pretense made of allowing 
the ordinary members of the Association any direct voice 
in the election of officers or in the conduct of the business 
of the organization. The voting power, by virtue of the 
coup to which we have referred whereby the convention 
was induced to pass a resolution before it knew what it 
was voting on, was vested in the House of Delegates, ap¬ 
pointed from the various State societies. These appoint¬ 
ments are controlled from the Central office in Chicago, 
and the House of Delegates, is, therefore, nothing but a 
“packed convention,” filled with creatures of the ring, 
pledged beforehand to do its bidding and to carry out its 
policies. As a natural outcome of this cut and dried ar¬ 
rangement, the Board of Trustees and the executive officers 
of the Association have succeeded themselves with mono¬ 
tonous regularity ever since this method of voting went 
into effect, and they will continue to do so as long as it 
lasts. 

Since the acquirement of this power, the clique have ex¬ 
ploited their members as the corporation directors do their 

29 



stockholders, for their own advancement and glory, always, 
of course, moralizing about the public welfare, just as corpora¬ 
tion magnates prate about the safety of the Nation’s com¬ 
merce. In short, it is easy to see that the course pursued 
and which is still being pursued by this Medical Combination 
parallels in many essential respects that which is followed by 
the great commercial trusts. And, just as in these 
latter, the stockholders are mere passive pawns, 
simply furnishing numerical and moral strength 
for the manipulation of the magnates, and are in 
no positive sense responsible for these manipula¬ 
tions, so it is with regard to the membership 
at large of the American Medical Association. 
Whatever criticism we make in this direction is leveled, 
not against the membership, but against the clique in con¬ 
trol; and our only criticism of the membership is, that they 
passively acquiesce in a course which will inevitably be visited 
upon their own devoted heads. 

Following out the methods of trusts in general, the 
Association management, represented by a half dozen men 
in the Central office at Chicago, has instituted a policy of 
high-handed autocracy toward its own membership. No¬ 
where is the policy more apparent than in the conduct of its 
official organ, the Journal of the American Medical Associa¬ 
tion. This organ is ostensibly the joint property of the 
members of the Association, a subscription to it is included 
in the membership fee (therein, by the way, violating a 
postal regulation, for which violation it enjoys a mysteri¬ 
ous immunity), and it is supposed to be the medium of 
communication, ventilation and discussion of everything 
that is of interest to its members. As a matter of fact, 
it is a rigidly censored court circular, into which 
nothing is by any chance allowed to creep that 
does not coincide with the plans of the ring, and 
from which the editor, who is also Secretary of the 
Association, excludes whatever he sees fit. 


30 


Macauley, in speaking of the London Gazette, the official 
organ of the British Government, said that “it contained 
nothing but that which the Secretary of State wished 
the Nation to know.” The Journal of the American Medi¬ 
cal Association occupies the same attitude toward the 
medical profession. It contains nothing except what 
the editor and the little coterie by whom he is 
surrounded wish the medical profession or the 
Association members to know. They decide what 
information the doctors shall have, and pronounce 
anathemas on all publications that carry the adver¬ 
tisements of remedies which do not meet their 
approval and endorsement, that pursue policies 
contrary to their own, or in any other way pre¬ 
sume to differ from the ruling powers. 

Attempts have been made at several meetings to secure 
an examination of the books and accounts of the Associa¬ 
tion, to which, as a stockholder, every member has a right 
of access; but thus far it has always been peremptorily 
refused. At the 1906 Convention, Dr. H. 0. Walker, of 
Detroit, moved the following resolution: 

“Whereas, the membership of the American Medical Association, 
numbering 19,285, is scattered throughout all the States and territories; 

“Whereas, the affairs of the Association are so intricate that it is 
difficult to make them clear to all; and 

“Whereas, because of these facts there has arisen the sentiment 
which bids fair to become disagreeably large unless the causes upon 
which it feeds be removed, viz.: ignorance of real truth; therefore, 
be it 

“Resolved, that a committee of five, namely, G. Frank Lydston, 
Chicago; Frederick Holme Wiggins, New York; A. H. Cordier, Kansas 
City, Mo.; Duncan Eve, Nashville, Tenn., and D. W. Graham, Chicago, 
be appointed by the House of Delegates of the American Medical 
Association and instructed, first, to make an exhaustive study of the 
affairs of the Association, The Journal, etc.; second, to employ an 
auditing expert to go over all the books of the Association; to have 
power to summon officers and employees of the Association before it, 
to give needful testimony; and in such other ways as it may deem 
best to secure all facts necessary for such independent report as may 
be needful to accomplish its purpose. 

“Resolved, that a sum of money be appropriated sufficient to 
defray the actual expenses of this study. 

“Resolved, that this committee report to the House of Delegates 
at their next session.” 


31 


Upon the motion of a member of the House of Delegates 
the resolution was promptly tabled, and in spite of several 
subsequent motions to reconsider, the matter has been so 
left. Commenting upon this transaction, the Detroit Medi¬ 
cal Journal says: 

“This refusal to have the affairs of the Association ‘ audited’ at 
the request of its friends is very difficult to understand. The cus¬ 
todian of a society’s property ordinarily demands that his books be 
audited. Only a dishonest or incompetent accountant resents the 
visit of an official inspector. It may be said that the accounts of the 
Association are audited by expert accountants, before the several 
reports are presented to the House of Delegates. The secretary says 
that this is done to expedite business. Moreover, the present time is 
one when every effort should be made to keep things above-board and 
to avoid suspicion. The aggressiveness of the Secretary and Trustees 
of the Journal has aroused great unrest in various parts of the country, 
as it was bound to do.” 

The financial reports have always had the appearance 
of being juggled for the purpose of hiding something. No 
business concern in the country would put out, and none 
of its stockholders would accept, such unbusiness-like state¬ 
ments. It is impossible, for example, to tell from these 
reports whether or not the Journal is making money or 
losing it, and how much; nor, for that matter, is it 
possible to obtain any intelligible idea of the financial 
status of any department of the Association. 

Bolstered up with the authority, which its apparently 
representative character lends it, the Association, or rather 
the ring which controls it, has attempted to exercise a 
complete censorship over the entire medical profession. It 
essays to dictate to the physician not only what medicines 
he shall and shall not use, but how he shall conduct him¬ 
self with his fellows and the public, until the doctor w T ho 
surrenders to its control can no longer call his soul his own. 
Not only this, but the purpose is well-formed to prevent 
the members of the Association from even reading any of 
the independent medical journals, and the privilege which 
these journals formerly had of making exhibits and solicit¬ 
ing subscriptions at the Association meetings is now de¬ 
nied. A short time ago a ukase was promulgated in the 
form of a resolution, to the effect, that 

32 


“No medical journal or publication can be exhibited (at the 
Association meetings) that contains advertisements of a drug, chemical 
or similar preparation used in the treatment of disease, which does 
not conform to the rules of the Council of Pharmacy and Chemistry 
of the American Medical Association.” 

In order that the full purport of this decree may be 
understood, we will say a few words about this Council 
of Pharmacy and Chemistry, to whose will the independ¬ 
ent journals must submit in all matters pertaining not 
only to editorial policy, but to business conduct as well, if 
they would avoid the penalty of proscription at the hands 
of the Association. 

This Council was formed about four years ago, and 
almost immediately set out with the purpose of arbitrarily 
regulating the manufacture and sale of medicines in the 
United States. It announced that it would “immediately 
examine into the composition and status of all such prepara¬ 
tions as are offered to physicians,” with the view to the 
publication of a book, to be called “New and Non-official 
Remedies,” in which were to be included such medicines as 
may conform to the standard which the Council elected 
to establish; and that no remedies which do not conform 
to this standard should be admitted into the book of “New 
and Non-official Remedies,” nor allowed a place in the 
advertising pages of the Journal 0 / the American Medical 
Association. All of which means, as we shall see later on, 
that they could not be prescribed by the members of the 
Association. 

The standard thus arbitrarily set up is, in brief, as fol¬ 
lows: 

First. The manufacturers shall furnish to the Council for publi¬ 
cation the names and exact quantities of the ingredients which enter 
into the composition of their several products, together with their 
methods and secret processes of manufacture, all of which must be so 
complete as to enable the Council to verify them and to determine 
the future status of the articles from time to time. 

Second. That every article must have a title indicative of its 
chemical composition or pharmaceutic character. 

Third. That no article shall be admitted to this book whose 
label, package or circular which accompanies the package, contains 
the names of the diseases for the treatment of which the remedy is 
indicated. 


33 


Fourth. That no article shall be admitted about which the manu¬ 
facturer or his agents shall make “unwarranted, exaggerated or mis¬ 
leading statements.’ ’ 

One has only to analyze these rules to realize the 
audacity of the men who have presumptuously proposed 
them. They mean that all the valuable trade secrets 
on which the prosperity of the manufacturers of these 
medicines is based must be delivered into the hands of 
this Council, without even the pretense of a guarantee 
that these trade secrets will be safeguarded. On the other 
hand, the bold announcement is made that they will be 
published to the world. 

The regulation that “every article must have a name 
indicative of its chemical composition or pharmaceutic 
character” would strike at the very root of the proprietary 
principle. The Journal of the American Medical Associa¬ 
tion would then insist that the members of the Association 
should prescribe such remedies by their pharmaceutic or 
chemical designation only, and, as the compulsory pub¬ 
lication of their formulas or processes would enable 
every Tom, Dick and Harry to duplicate the articles, 
the original proprietor would have no protection, either 
in his trade-names, in his formulas or his secret processes. 
Reduced, therefore, to the last analysis, the propo¬ 
sition of the Council virtually amounts to an 
attempt at confiscation of property rights in trade¬ 
marks and trade secrets, rights which are recog¬ 
nized and protected by every civilized nation on 
earth, and by every class of individuals, except 
anarchists, communists, and this bumptious Coun¬ 
cil of Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American 
Medical Association. 

“No article will be admitted or retained about whose 
therapeutic value the manufacturer or his agent shall 
make unwarranted, exaggerated or misleading statements.” 

What constitutes “unwarranted, exaggerated or mislead¬ 
ing statements” must all be left to the infallible judgment 

34 


of this Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry. The manu¬ 
facturer may have clinical reports from thousands of 
physicians who have used his remedies in actual practice 
and upon which he bases his claims as to their virtues, 
but if the Council, whose members may never have pre¬ 
scribed his medicines and watched their effects, happens 
to think, or is bribed by some rival manufacturer to declare, 
that these claims are “unwarranted, exaggerated or mis¬ 
leading,” the remedy is tabooed, and no member of the 
Association dares use or recommend it. Again, an agent 
of the manufacturer, calling on the profession, may make 
some unauthorized statement regarding a remedy to some 
physician, who takes it upon himself to report it to the 
august Council, by whom it is deemed “unwarranted, exag¬ 
gerated or misleading,” and the article is forthwith con¬ 
demned. But, even if the remedy is given a place among 
the elect, the Council may change its mind to-morrow and 
decide to cast it out, and hence, there can never be any¬ 
thing settled or established about its determinations. The 
Council, we are informed, will not pass judgment on the 
therapeutic value of the remedies examined, but upon 
their ‘ethical’ status only. This is about as cold-blooded 
a proposition as we have ever seen in cold type, and it ut¬ 
terly explodes the pretense that their action is based on the 
fear that “the laity, who are not competent to determine 
whether or not their employment is ■ safe and proper, may 
be induced to continue their use or recommend them to 
others, quite regardless of the evident danger of forming 
drug habits, or of doing themselves serious injury by em¬ 
ploying a remedy that in reality may be contra-indicated. ” 
These professions of humane consideration for the laity 
would be laudable if they were sincere, but, unfortunately, 
they do not harmonize with the announcement that the thera¬ 
peutic value of the remedies is not to be passed on at all, but 
that they will be considered alone from the standpoint of 
their “ethical” status. The therapeutic value of a remedy 
is the chief thing that should concern a physician who is 


anxious to relieve human suffering, or to save human life 
If he believes a certain remedy has value and fits his case 
in hand, if he be not one of these pretenders to “ethics,” 
he will prescribe it, regardless as to whether or not it will 
stand the test of some arbitrary ethical standard, or whether 
permission has been granted for him to prescribe it by any 
self-constituted body of medical censors. 

Commenting on the audacity of the Council of Phar¬ 
macy and Chemistry, the Charlotte ( N . C.) Medical Journal, 
an independent medical journal, pertinently says: 

“Are we living in America or Darkest Russia? Is this the four¬ 
teenth or the twentieth century? Are we freemen or serfs? Have 
we—owners and publishers of medical journals—any rights whatever 
which the machine is bound to respect? Have we the right to think 
and speak our sentiments, or are we to be controlled in both by the 
monstrous machine which would dictate to us and muzzle the press 
under the denunciation of being ‘unclean’ or ‘infectious’ and unworthy 
of support by the profession? Shall we not be permitted to ‘differ 
with brother Paul’ as to the respectability of a pharmaceutical prepara¬ 
tion? Who gave this Council the right to dictate to the press what 
shall and shall not be advertised? This is the most insolent, high¬ 
handed and outrageous act of all the brazen acts of the political ma¬ 
chine that controls the American Medical Association and its organ.” 

The Medical Mirror expressed itself with equal force 
on the subject. It said: 

“The American Medical Association is a small part of the American 
profession. The men who run it are a small part of the Association. 
The Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry is the creature of the domi¬ 
nating clique. This mischievous little council would seem to be a 
flea on the last hair of the tail of the dog. If the tail, which is short 
and quite weak, cannot wag the dog, what can the flea do? Nothing. 

“This close set of men dares to tell a doctor, who, mayhap, has 
been using certain preparations for years, that he is entirely wrong in 
his selection of remedial agents. They tell him he must not prescribe 
the condemned articles because they do not know the exact number 
of revolutions the grinding machinery made or the number of minutes 
a fluid took to run through a percolator.” 

If it be legitimate for the Association to dictate what 
remedies physicians shall use, why should it not also 
dictate what books they shall read? Medical literature 
is even more permanently and subtly influential in the 
practice of medicine than of drugs, and the same reasons 
(or lack of reasons) for arbitrary censorship of the one 
holds good for an arbitrary censorship of the other. One 

36 


has only to carry these plausible propositions to their 
logical extremity in order to perceive how insidiously 
dangerous, and how subvertive of all the elementary prin¬ 
ciples of liberty and progress they are. 

Dr. Geo. F. Butler, of Chicago, in an able address before 
the Mississippi Valley Medical Society, thus voices the pro¬ 
test of all intelligent and self-respecting physicians against 
the self-assumed censorship: 

“It is monstrous for any man or set of men to forbid the use of 
any method, any instrument or remedy, or any treatment which in 
the opinion of the attending physician promises success. I repeat, it 
is an insult to our independence and intelligence that we are not 
allowed to read any book or medical journal we please at anytime or 
place, whether in a medical society or in the seclusion of our offices, 
to use any remedy we please, whether it be so-called ‘ regular/ ‘ homeo¬ 
pathic/ ‘eclectic/ ‘alkaloidal’ or ‘proprietary/ or any method of 
treatment whatsoever, even though it smack of Christian Science or 
osteopathy, without being subjected to public ridicule and criticism by 
a few self-appointed ‘authorities’ and ‘leaders’ in medicine.” 

To give these leaders the right practically to 
decide what medicines shall be used would be tan¬ 
tamount to the establishment of a State system of 
medicine. In medicine, as in religion, very little is 
definitely settled, and the laws of progress require 
that the State leave all questions pertaining to 
either subject open for discussion and experimen¬ 
tation, giving every one the right to believe and 
practice any system or none. Once grant this 
Medical Trust the power it seeks, and there would 
be no limit to its aggression. 

Already the suggestion has been made to extend the 
dictatorship of medicine to the matter of diet and hygiene. 
In a recent article in the Popular Science Monthly , Dr. 
Richard C. Newton, of Montclair, N. J., a prominent 
member of the American Medical Association, wrote: 

“There should be some competent and properly equipped body, 
like the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical 
Association, who will spend the necessary time and trouble to settle 
the questions, not alone of the physiological diet, but of the proper 
bodily exercise, of ventilation, heating, bathing, etc., etc., in short, of 
personal hygiene, as well as the problems affecting the public health, 
the pollution of streams, and the extinction of tuberculosis.” 

37 


CHAPTER V 


State Examining Boards, the Pliant Creatures 

of the Medical Trust 


Years ago, in the old Puritanical days in New England, 
when the State governments assumed control of the entire 
life of their citizens, the attempt was made to dictate the 
details of living, even to the style of wearing apparel. 
Even in those times, when government was regarded as 
essentially a paternal function, and when there was some 
excuse for it too, such restrictions upon ’personal liberty 
were not received with any too great favor by the people. 
Certainly twentieth century Americans will not be apt 
to accede with any alacrity to this proposition of Dr. New¬ 
ton, that organized medicine, through its councils and local 
societies, shall intrude itself upon the home-life of the 
citizen and dictate how he shall live, and eat, and bathe, 
and what not. Such a conception is preposterous, and 
simply serves to show the length and egotistic madness 
to which the medical oligarchy have allowed their obses¬ 
sions to cany them. 

Shrewdly recognizing the fact that free education is 
the specific safeguard against priestcraft and hostile to 
its schemes of monopoly, the American Medical Associa¬ 
tion has not failed to exercise its subsidizing and controll¬ 
ing influence in this direction. By virtue of that same 
specious representative capacity with which its great numer¬ 
ical strength colors it, the Association has assumed an 
arbitrary censorship over the medical colleges of the country. 
In September, 1907, the Journal editorially advocated 


38 




that its Council on Medical Education should have the 
right to sit in judgment on medical schools and practically 
to determine whether or not they should be permitted to 
continue in existence. And this is virtually what is being 
done, for the Council inspects and reports on every medical 
college tnat surrenders itself to its investigation, and those 
which decline inspection or which fail to satisfy the standards 
of the Council are subjected to all the tremendous politi¬ 
cal and economic pressure at the Association’s command to 
force them out of business. 

Sometimes there is found a college of sufficient strength 
and courage to oppose the Council and live. Such, for 
instance, is the Albany Medical College of New York, whose 
president, in his annual address of 1907, gave utterance to 
the following manifesto: 

“From what has been said it will be seen that I am by no means 
in sympathy with the efforts put forth by the Council on Medical Edu¬ 
cation of the American Medical Association to bring about a uniformity 
in the teaching of medical schools, for I believe such uniformity to be 
neither possible of attainment in practice nor even desirable. And I 
entirely dissent from the methods employed by the Council in striving 
to determine the relative standing of medical schools, which I believe 
to be arbitrary, inconclusive, idealistic, rather than practical, and often 
unnecessary, meddlesome and annoying to the schools, and to those 
who are carrying on the real work in the places in w 7 hich they are set, 
while these gentlemen are investigating them. Such recommenda¬ 
tions as that of Dr. BevaiTs in his address as Chairman of the Council 
at its conference last April: ‘That State boards of each State should 
inspect its schools and refuse recognition to those which are not teach¬ 
ing scientific medicine/ I have elsewhere opposed, and shall continue 
to oppose. Until such time as our medical examining boards are 
created in a different manner, and are differently constituted from 
those at present existing in most of our States, it would be, in my 
judgment, in the highest degree impolitic, inexpedient, unsafe and 
unjust to place any such responsibility in their keeping.” 

What the Association cannot accomplish in this direc¬ 
tion by direct influence upon the colleges, it achieves in¬ 
directly through the State Examining Boards, all of which 
are practically under its control, the Association being the 
“holding company” for these minor bodies. 

Occasionally, in the pursuit of this policy, it comes in 
conflict with the courts of the land, and is then made to 
understand that its methods are not in accordance with 


39 


law or public sentiment. This happened in the case of the 
Barnes Medical College of St. Louis, which the State Board 
of Health excluded from the list of recognized schools, 
refusing even to allow its students to come up before it 
for examination. In granting the college a mandamus 
to compel the State Board to admit its students to exami¬ 
nation, the Court concluded: 

“That the action of the State Board, based upon no other or 
different information and investigation than that disclosed by the 
evidence, and briefly adverted to above, was without authority, and 
is oppressive and unreasonable in fact, as applied to the graduating 
class of 1908; and peremptory w r rit of mandamus will therefore be 
awarded, commanding said State Board of Health, and the various 
members thereof, to accord to the relators and such of them as shall 
have complied with all other conditions of the Statute of 1907, an op¬ 
portunity with all convenient speed to be and appear before said Board, 
and to undergo the usual examination accorded to other applicants for 
license to practice medicine and surgery in this State, with costs.” 

Although the court declared the Board was 
guilty of oppression in office, and ordered that the 
students of the complaining college be accorded 
the right of examination, it can be seen how inade¬ 
quate is the relief thus granted, when we reflect 
that the conclusions of the Board at the examina¬ 
tions are absolute, and that when these same stu¬ 
dents come up before them, it matters not how 
proficient they really are, if the Board from malice, 
prejudice or self-interest decides against them, 
there is no court in the land to which they 
can appeal for a fair hearing; and thus, though 
they have prepared themselves for the profession 
of medicine, they are arbitrarily deprived of the 
right to practice it, and must seek other means of 
making a living. 

That these ringsters realize how important a place in 
their scheme of monoply the State Boards can be made 
to fill, is evident from the proposition recently put forth by 
their legislative agent, the adroit Dr. McCormack, and 
supported by the president of the Indiana Association 
and by others equally prominent in the counsels of the 


40 


American Medical Association, that all physicians shall 
be compelled to submit to re-examination every five years 
before being allowed to continue in practice. The most 
guileless person must be able to see that such a regulation 
would put into the hands of the ring a club with which 
every doctor could be driven into the organization and 
forced absolutely to do the bidding of its leaders, on pain 
of having his certificate cancelled and his only means of 
livelihood taken away from him. 

Even as it stands, the State Boards, in their relation 
to the licensing and regulation of practitioners of medi¬ 
cine, are entirely too subservient to the medical organiza¬ 
tions of the States in which they exist, for instead of rep¬ 
resenting the interests of the public as concerned in the 
practice of medicine, they have in most instances come to 
be the arm which official medicine reaches into State affairs 
for the promotion of its own schemes and enterprises, a 
view of the matter which organized medicine complacently 
entertains and brazenly impresses upon the State Boards. 

The membership of these Boards, ostensibly in the 
hands of the Governors of the States, is really dictated 
by the medical societies of the States, which invariably means 
the small clique which controls those societies. So that the 
whole arrangement presents the anomalous condition of 
the police power of the States being appealed to for the 
protection of the public against the deficiencies of a cer¬ 
tain class of men, and the policemen selected to administer 
such power being taken from the ranks of the very class 
against whom the police power has been invoked. 

The powers wielded by the State Boards are despotic 
in character and scope, and are almost wholly directed, 
not to the ends for which the public sanctioned their crea¬ 
tion, but for the interests of dominant cliques in medicine— 
the shutting off of competition, the furtherance of the polit¬ 
ical and other schemes of the medical oligarchy, and the 
extermination of all those influences which interfere with 
its plans. The board, when appointed, is clothed with 

41 


the power of prosecutor, judge and jury. It may rob a 
man of the benefit of his life-work and study; it decides 
which are and which are not reputable medical colleges; it 
directs what system or systems of medicine shall be practiced 
within the State; and from its arbitrary decisions there 
is no appeal. 

The chief exercise of these powers is seen, not in the 
weeding out of quacks, charlatans and incompetents from 
the practice of medicine, for it is notorious that the crea¬ 
tion of medical boards has had practically no effect in this 
direction, but in the ostracizing of all those colleges and 
individuals that do not meet the requirements dictated 
to the board by the medical society of the State; and 
as the State Society is but the local branch of the Ameri¬ 
can Medical Association, the latter is virtually the “hold¬ 
ing company” of all the despotic State boards. 

Of the dangerous latitude of power vested in the State 
Boards in their relation to the public aspects of medicine 
and hygiene, and of the still more daring ambitions of the 
Medical Trust in this direction, we shall have more to say 
presently. What we are pointing out just here is the power¬ 
ful and effective medium which the State Boards afford 
the Trust for its monopolistic control of the educational 
and economic interests of the doctor himself. 

That the censorship of medical schools is not based 
altogether upon the paternal considerations openly ad¬ 
vanced is evidenced by the strangely inconsistent propo¬ 
sition, emanating from the Legislative Committee of the 
Association, to exclude the subject of therapeutics from 
State Board examinations, the reason advanced being 
that it will place the different schools of medicine upon 
an equal footing, and thus do away with the objection of 
the lesser sects to a single examining board. 

Therapeutics is defined as “that part of the science 
of medicine which treats of the discovery and application 
of remedies for diseases.” With such as its mission, the 
ordinary individual would regard therapeutics as occupying 

42 


the most important office in the treatment of the sick. 
But what does the medical oligarchy care for the sick, 
when such concern stands in the way of the accomplish¬ 
ment of their selfish designs! 

The Journal of Clinical Medicine makes the following 
very pertinent comment on the subject: 

“The exclusion of therapeutics nullifies the original object of the 
creation of these boards, and their only excuse for continued existence 
—the protection of the people against unqualified practicians. It 
makes little difference how proficient a doctor may be in the funda¬ 
mental branches of a medical education if he is ignorant of the best 
methods of treating the sick. He may be all kinds of a good anatomist, 
chemist, pathologist, bacteriologist and several other ists, and yet be 
utterly at a loss, and useless, as a practising physician—and yet it is 
precisely that and nothing else in which the community has an interest 
in him and his qualifications. Instead of excluding therapeutics from 
these examinations we would suggest that all else except this branch 
and diagnosis be excluded. The rest could be taken for granted— 
the medical colleges surely look out for them. What interests the 
public, in whose name and for whose protection these boards were 
called into existence, is the ability of the doctor to recognize and treat 
diseases.” 

Of course, the real significance of the proposition to elim¬ 
inate therapeutics from the examinations is patent to all who 
are not blinded by the hypnotic passes of the ruling clique. 
Besides shedding an interesting side-light upon the real motive 
in seeking college control, the sheer fact that this, their latest 
suggestion emanates from the ring’s late candidate for 
United States Senatorship from Ohio, and the Chairman of 
its Committee on Legislation, makes it as clear as noonday 
that it is a bid for the political support of the Homeopaths 
and Eclectics. For years these two schools of medicine 
have been flouted by the Association as “quacks” and 
“irregulars.” “Ethical” doctors have refused to con¬ 
sult with them or to recognize them in any manner. They 
have, besides, sought by legal prohibition to prevent them 
from practicing their profession. But, now that the Asso¬ 
ciation has gone into politics and these “quacks” can be 
“used,” the past is all forgotten, and the ring graciously 
proposes to admit them into its fold and to be silent about 
their sectarian therapeutics in State Board Examinations. 


43 


We think they will find that the sop so artfully prepared 
will be wasted. The Homeopathic and Eclectic men do 
not seem to be quite the gullible fools that the ring 
counts upon their being. It is a case of the Greeks bearing 
gifts. Dr. W. E. Reilly, in the Medical Forum, a Homeo¬ 
pathic journal, thus runs his blade through their scheme: 

“Having fought us as enemies for over one hundred years, with 
no apparent results other than stimulating our growth, they have as¬ 
sumed the more dangerous and insidious role of friends, and are now 
undertaking to give us a little friendly advice along the same line that 
Satan gave Eve in the Garden of Eden. We are no longer ‘quacks/ 
to our faces, but ‘all right doctors/ except for the fact that we are 
using the commercial value of the name ‘homeopath/ ‘Of course 
we all believe and treat alike, and there should be only one organiza¬ 
tion; so just come in and join our Association, and then don’t use the 
word homeopath or homeopathic/ and continue to try to in 
veigle us into all sorts of entanglements where our individuality as a 
separate school or system will be entirely dissipated.” 

An Eclectic journal, the California Eclectic Medical 
Journal, is equally frank with them: 

“It is true that the old school is using every possible means to 
down us, and where force fails will attempt to accomplish our ruin 
under the disguise of friendship. Not this alone; in order to hurt the 
regular Eclectic and regular Homeopathic schools of medicine, some 
of them have even shown a tendency to sacrifice their own rights and 
liberty by favoring laws preventing physicians to dispense their own 
medicines. Just think of it, does it seem possible that human and 
professional animosity would go so far as to forget their own welfare 
and liberty, just because it would perhaps hit other schools of medicine 
a little harder than their own?” 


44 


CHAPTER VI 


An Attempt to Muzzle the Press 


In its greed for monopolistic power, the Medical Trust 
would fain crush out the independent medical press. It 
is doing all that in it lies to accomplish this end. It urges 
all of its members not to subscribe for independent 
medical journals, and in case they receive such publications 
as samples, to throw them unread, into the waste¬ 
basket. It cuts off all exchanges with independent jour¬ 
nals that dare to criticise its policies. It copyrights all of 
its own matter, and thus limits the reproduction of its 
information in independent papers. It enters into unfair 
competition with them in the advertising field. But, 
happily, with all this active animus and undermining, the 
octopus has not yet reached the point where it can suppress 
independent medical journalism, nor will such a point ever 
be reached. As the Journal of Clinical Medicine , well says: 

“You can’t wipe out the independent journal without getting the 
permission of the independent editor and the independent doctor, its 
reader. There will be things for him to say, wrongs to right, excesses 
to be abated, injustice to be fought, reforms to be advocated—till 
medical science has been swept oil the footstool by the triumphant 
dominion of the millenium. And—we have something to say our¬ 
selves. So long as we believe that Medicine still falls short of the high 
ideals that are hers, of the possibilities in the healing and relief of the 
sick which are within her reach, we shall fight, FIGHT, FIGHT!—for 
a truer and better therapy, one which shall deserve the confidence of 
every doctor and which will eventually come to its own—is coming to 
its own right now.” 

Incidentally, the ring might take warning against carry¬ 
ing its ineffectual malicious attempts against the indepen¬ 
dent press too far. The medical press created the Associa¬ 
tion, and the medical press can undo it again. 


45 




If one wishes to picture the condition of the 
medical profession without an independent press, 
one has but to conceive the state of a government 
in which there is no liberty of the press, where no 
papers are published save those that are subsidized 
by the State,where no medium exists through which 
any of the wholesome corrective influences of pub¬ 
licity can operate. Such a condition, we can well 
believe, would be exceedingly pleasing to the leaders 
of American medicine, and would vastly simplify 
their monopolistic schemes. But we are equally 
convinced that the great rank and file of medicine 
would never stand for an extremity so utterly 
opposed to Anglo-Saxon ideas of government. 
Passive and long-suffering as they are, medical 
men are not quite so indifferent as that. 

But it is not only a censorship of the medical journals 
that the oligarchy seek to establish. They would extend 
their power over the public press also, and would make it 
an infamous crime for a newspaper or an individual to 
question their infallibility or to criticise their conduct. 
During the last yellow fever epidemic in Louisiana, in a 
leading editorial, the Journal of the American Medical As¬ 
sociation severely arraigned a New Orleans paper for criti¬ 
cising the physicians in charge of the United States Public 
Health and Marine Hospital Service for failing to combat 
the pestilence with success. The Journal said: 

“It is one thing to discuss debatable theories and to expose dis¬ 
honesty wherever found, but the events of the epidemic cannot by 
any artifice be twisted into any excuse for this New Orleans paper. 
* * * The time is close at hand for the creation by statute of a 

new variety of Treason. * * * If it be treason in time of war for 
a man to betray his country’s military plans, it certainly should be 
made treason for a man or a publication in time of deadly peril from 
disease, to foment, by false allegations, public lack of confidence in 
the government’s plan of rescue, and in the integrity and ability of 
the men (that is, the physicians) who risk their lives to save the com¬ 
munity from unnecessary deaths. Than this, no treachery can be 
more base. Physicians, citizens, and the reputable press should join in 
asking stringent penalties for this crime against the nation, against 
humanity.” 


46 


Treason is the crime of highest degree. The 
punishment in all countries for the offense is death. 
And yet it is proposed that the “mere fomenting 
of a lack of confidence” in certain subordinate 
government officials (if they happen to be doctors) 
shall constitute the offense; and this notwithstanding 
that the Constitution declares that: 

“Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying 
war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and 
comfort.” 


CHAPTER VII 


The Attempt of the American Medical 
Association to Enlist Legislative 
Aid in Favor of Its Monop¬ 
olistic Schemes. 


Finally, in the last few years, the Association, follow¬ 
ing the example of other corporations in the gradual forg¬ 
ing of its monopolistic bonds, has essayed to influence 
the legislative and administrative branches of State and 
National Government in favor of its schemes, and has 

> •> i 

recently gone openly into politics for that purpose. To 
be sure it still shouts its old-time slogan of “the public 
weal” but in this case it makes the thinnest kind of disguise 
of its real motives, and openly boasts that it has already 
made the power of medicine felt in legislative halls, so 
that, whereas, legislators formerly kept the representatives 
of the Association dancing attendance upon them for any¬ 
thing they wanted, now these same legislators dance atten¬ 
dance upon the Association’s delegates. 

Said Dr. C. A. L. Reed, Chairman of the Legislative 
Committee and late candidate for the United States Senate, 
in a speech at Chicago, during the recent meeting of the 
Association: 

"When a committee of the American Medical Association went to 
the Fifty-eighth Congress, their legislative committee said, ‘Can’t you 
boil down what you have to say into twenty minutes?’ Dr. Reed 
said, ‘There were in that Congress one doctor in the Senate and none 
in the House.’ 

“ In the Fifty-ninth Congress there were three doctors in the House 
and one in the Senate, and doctors all over the country had been using 
their influence, so the committee said, ‘Just tell us what you want, 
gentlemen; take as much time as you like.’ 


48 




“In the Sixtieth Congress there were five doctors, all told, and 
because of the same influence we simply went to the Willard Hotel 
AND SENT FOR CONGRESSMEN TO COME TO US, AND THEY 
CAME. * * * In the next Congress I have every reason to believe 

there will be twenty-five physicians.” 

According to Dr. Reed, it is only by representation in 
Congress, which he described as being at present “water¬ 
logged with lawyers,” that the Association could hope to 
see its will translated into law. 

Already, by special legislation in State and National 
bodies, it has succeeded in riveting fetters of restriction 
and regulation upon other industries, amounting in some 
cases to almost despotic control, while retaining its own 
sovereign independence unanswerable to any law. 

The Pure Food and Drugs Act, in its present form, and 
all the State laws on the subject, excellent as they are in 
principle and ostensible purpose, are in practice but 
distorted pieces of class legislation, showing the fine Italian 
hand of the Medical Trust, for they apply only to the drugs 
handled by druggists, and exempt those dispensed by the 
physician; and in this matter the physician*s finger is 
thicker than the druggist’s loins. In so far as these laws 
apply to drugs, they play, at all points, directly into the 
doctor’s hands, and wherever they thus play into the doctor’s 
hands, they fail of their essential protective effect to the 
public. 

But even with these advantages the clique are not satisfied; 
for the laws have signally failed to effect the main purpose 
they had in view, which was the extermination of proprie¬ 
tary medicines. In their blind fanaticism they seem 
really to have believed that the majority of these prepara¬ 
tions were but alcoholic beverages and habit-forming decoc¬ 
tions in disguise, and that the provisions in the laws which 
compel the manufacturers to state on their labels the 
amount of alcohol, and the names and quantities of all nar¬ 
cotic drugs which enter into the composition of their remedies, 
would expose their dangerous character to the public and 
drive them from the market. When they found how very 

,49 


few of these preparations were affected by the laws, they 
were chagrined and disappointed, which accounts for their 
present activity. 

Failing by the Pure Food and Drug Laws to prevent 
the sale of proprietary medicines, the medical oligarchy has 
even suggested that journals and newspapers containing 
advertisements of these preparations shall be denied ad¬ 
mission to the mails. Dr. C. G. Williams, in the Journal 
oj the American Medical Association, complacently proposes 
in this respect that “special national legislation, such as 
the existing regulation against lottery advertisements in 
newspapers,” be extended to meet the case, and this propo¬ 
sition has the endorsement of the Legislative Committee 
and the official organ, and is part and parcel of their mono¬ 
polistic scheme. 

Like every powerful corporation, the American Medi¬ 
cal Association has a legislative fund. Probably like every 
other corporation, it has really two legislative funds, one 
open to public scrutiny and the other known only to the 
powers that be. The Journal oj the American Medical 
Association of May 23, 1908, tells of annual expenses for 
“medical legislation” (whatever that may mean) of $2,573.22. 
It can hardly be, however, that this represents all the money 
spent in furthering its legislative and political schemes, 
for the Committee on Legislation, of which Dr. C. A. L. 
Reed was Chairman, in its report to the convention, in 
1905 stated: 

“It has secured a list of local political leaders of every organized 
and recognized political party in the United States. The list already 
embraces the names of several political managers in each of 900 counties, 
the entire list aggregating in excess of 11,000 names. Through this 
list the central committee is in position to bring questions of pending 
legislation to the serious and thoughtful consideration of the men who, 
in their respective localities, exercise a preponderating influence in 
determining political action. * * * The political list is arranged 

so that the dominant politics of each county and of each congressional 
district is indicated, as well as the political affiliations of each member 
whose name appears on the list. It thus happens that we are able to 
move with a certain degree of accuracy in invoking political influence 
in behalf of such measures as are taken up by vour committee. This 
list will be kept alive by asking for revisiQns from time to time, es- 


50 


pecially after each general election, and will, we are sure, prove to be 
an effective medium of action in the agitations which are pending in 
the immediate future.” 

In June, 1907, it was announced by Dr. Reed that the 
Association had an emissary in each of the 2830 counties 
of the country, and that the list of political leaders had 
been increased to 16,000, to whom circulars are sent, the 
purpose being, according to Dr. Reed, “to educate them 
on proposed or pending legislation in which the medical 
profession is interested.” All of which shows that- the 
American Medical Association leaders have not been 
idle, and that they are not novices in politics. 

If this kind of work is being kept up, it must certainly 
require more than the paltry sum specified in the Journal's 
report to sustain it. 

By the way, what a familiar ring that report of the 
Committee on Legislation has. One might almost hear 
its identical words falling from the unwilling lips of a wit¬ 
ness under cross-examination in the recent grilling of the 
Standard Oil Company; or find them in one of the literary 
effusions from the pen of Mr. Archbold displayed for public 
perusal in the pages of Mr. Hearst’s newspapers. 

Indeed, one has only to read the following description 
of the Standard System of political control, taken from a 
daily newspaper, to see how nearly alike to it is the system 
of that other self-proclaimed philanthropic institution, 
the American Medical Association, as outlined in the 
quotation above: 

“ In 1896 the statement was made that in one of the secret rooms 
in the Standard Oil Building, near Bowling Green, New York City, 
there were complete records of the political standing and complexion 
of every township in the United States, with the name of every leader 
of a party or faction, his strength and private reputation, his business 
success or non-success, and his ambitions. When it became necessary 
to legislate in a certain direction the Standard Oil Company obtained 
control of its men so many years ahead of a bill that its fine, oily hand 
was not suspected. No wonder we have been so long in reaching the 
octopus.” 

In further imitation of these commercial monopolies, 
we find the Association adroitly canvassing candidates for 


51 


governorship as to whether, in case of election, they will 
“approve all rational (?) public health and medical legis¬ 
lation that might be introduced.” The veiled threat was 
made that a failure to approve such legislation would arouse 
the antagonism of the medical profession. One of the 
candidates thus canvassed broke through the thinness of 
the insinuation by sensibly replying that no right-minded 
man could oppose “rational” legislation of the kind, but 
added that there might be some dispute as to what con¬ 
stitutes “rational medical legislation.” It even sought to 
bulldoze one of the Presidential candidates in the recent 
election. One of these candidates, as everyone knows, 
owns and publishes a newspaper, which, like all other news¬ 
papers, carries advertisements of proprietary medicines. 
A committee of organization physicians wrote the candi¬ 
date in question, demanding that he expunge all such 
advertisements from his paper, or incur the enmity of the 
medical men of the country. Needless to say, the demand 
was ignored. 

In Louisiana a law has been recently placed upon the 
statute book, tlirough the influence of the organized pro¬ 
fession of the State, giving all physicians legally entitled 
to practice their profession a lien for medical services ren¬ 
dered to any individual on the crops of such person, which 
should have precedence over all other claims. 

But even that is a mere bagatelle as compared with the 
power and opportunity conferred upon the medical society 
in Louisiana by the health code. The Louisiana State 
Board of Health, under the provisions of the State Consti¬ 
tution, is given explicit power to revise and amend the 
sanitary code. The mere dictum of the board—which 
means the dictum of its president—who is, of course, a 
member of the American Medical Association, has the 
effect of a State law. In short, the organized profes¬ 
sion has, by its old bluff of “public welfare,” and 
by playing upon the public fears of epidemics and 
contagious diseases, induced the legislative body 

52 


to delegate its law-making power to its representa¬ 
tive, in subversion of the fundamental principles 
of republican government. 

It is not surprising that one of the first of these code 
rules to be thus given the force of law was that druggists 
must not refill doctors’ prescriptions. Incidentally, the 
Louisiana Board has settled once for all the much-disputed 
question as to the ownership of the prescription. It has 
promulgated as law the ruling that the prescription belongs 
incontestably to the doctor. To be sure, since Dr. Irion 
was deposed from the presidency and Dr. Dillon succeeded 
him, this prescription ruling has been modified to the ex¬ 
tent that they may be refilled unless expressly forbidden 
by the physician, which is far more sensible; but this very 
change of ruling is illustrative of the precarious and arbi¬ 
trary state of the drug laws in Louisiana. What is permis¬ 
sible one week may be penal the next, and vice versa. All 
that the board has to do is to issue a ukase that black is 
white, and it becomes white. It is hard to see how a 
druggist can afford to carry a stock for more than a day at 
a time, for he never knows whether he is to be permitted 
to sell what he has. 

Much the same kind of absolutism exists in the health 
code of New York, and of several other States; and this 
is undoubtedly the state of affairs that the Medical Trust 
would like to bring about in every commonwealth of the 
Union. Talk about monopoly—the Standard Oil Company 
would be a mere unsophisticated tyro in comparison with 
such a trust. 

Lest we be accused of sensational and exaggerated 
alarmism in this matter, let us hasten to say that this 
very comprehensive plan of despotic State medicine has 
already been expressly and explicitly proposed by the 
American Medical Association. In his oration on “State 
Medicine” at the 1906 Convention of the Association, Dr. 
W. H. Sanders, the Chairman of its Section on State Medi¬ 
cines (who by the way is also health officer of the State 

53 


of Alabama), formulated and propounded a well-conceived 
scheme for a State Establishment of Medicine, which 
was afterwards given the seal of the Association by promi¬ 
nent publication in its official Organ, under date of July 6th, 
1907, beside which the most extravagant dreams of mediaeval 
priestcraft were but mild conceptions of despotism. 

The proposition actually and seriously contemplates 
that State and County Medical Societies shall be vested 
with the authority of Boards of Health for their respective 
territories. Its author naively remarks that: 

“To endow a county medical society with the authority of a board 
of health would necessarily require an act of the State legislature; 
but if the members of the profession in the several States will organize 
by counties, with the distinct purpose of acquiring this right, it will 
be conferred.” 

Continuing, he says: 

“For reasons corresponding with but more imperative than those 
assigned when discussing county organizations, the medical associa¬ 
tion of a State should constitute the State Board of Health. * * * 

By vesting a State medical association with the authority of a State 
Board of Health, all the difficulties pointed out will be avoided and 
all the advantages claimed will be secured. When, after due delibera¬ 
tion, sanitary campaigns have been planned and policies fixed, execu¬ 
tion should be wrought out under one man.” 

Further on, with equal ingenuousness, he says: 

“Inasmuch as a State government is sovereign over its county 
government, it logically follows that a State Board of Health should 
be sovereign over county boards, a principle that must be applied in 
practice in order to unite the latter into one homogeneous and effective 
whole.” 

When the full import of this plan dawns on one 
it makes one gasp. It means that the most absolute 
and sovereign power over the persons and property 
of the people shall be vested in a body of medical 
men who happen to belong to the medical society 
of that territory. They are not directly or indi¬ 
rectly the representatives of the people, for the 
people do not elect them, nor are they even 
appointed by those who have been so elected. 
Their title rests in the fact that they belong to the 

54 


medical society—and the society determines within 
itself who shall be its members and under what 
conditions. Each State society is, under the pres¬ 
ent constitution of organized medicine, an integral 
part of the American Medical Association, so that 
the logical outworking of the plan would vest the 
sovereign health power of “the homogeneous and 
effective whole,” i. e., of the Nation, in the Ameri¬ 
can Medical Association. 


L+ 


0 


55 


CHAPTER VIII 


The Audacious Attempt to Establish a State 

System of Medicine. 


The proposition to establish a State System of Medi¬ 
cine, to create a sort of Medical Priestcraft and to conse¬ 
crate the American Medical Association ringsters to its 
service, is not the wild dream of an irresponsible individual, 
but a carefully conceived and well-thought out plan of an 
acknowledged representative and leader in the counsels 
of the American Medical Association, and it has the sanc¬ 
tion and endorsement of its official organ. It is but 
indicative of the ultimate purpose, not heretofore so fully 
revealed, to have themselves endowed with absolute power 
over the practice of medicine and all other matters per¬ 
taining to the public health. 

That Dr. Sanders is not alone in advocating a State 
Establishment of Medicine is evident to all who are familiar 
with the discussions at the American Medical Association 
Conventions, or who read the various journalistic organs 
of that body. For instance, in a paper published in the 
Journal of the American Medical Association, January 12th, 
1907, by Dr. J. N. McCormack, Chairman of the Committee 
on Organization of the American Medical Association (of 
whom we shall have more to say later on), that distin¬ 
guished gentleman says: 

“A State Board of Health and a State Board of Medical 
Examiners, whether joint or separate, should in fact be the 
executive committee and mouthpiece of the State Societies. 

* * - * And they cannot hope to attain any great degree of useful¬ 

ness until this is practically realized. “Already, ”he tells us, “this is often 


56 




done by a tacit understanding between the appointing power and the 
profession (meaning his association) under which the societies sug¬ 
gest and practically nominate their representatives as vacancies 
OCCUr.” 

This extraordinary statement amounts, as did 
that of Dr. Sanders’, to a proposition to give a pri¬ 
vate association of individuals, to-wit, the medical 
societies, the right to select State officials, and to 
allow the officials thus selected to be the repre¬ 
sentatives, not of the people, but of the medical 
societies; and Dr. McCormack makes no bones of 
asserting that the purposes of the Association can¬ 
not be fully accomplished until this is practically 
realized. 

Dr. McCormack complains that lawyers, as a rule, 
oppose the extreme legislation he seeks, on the ground 
that “it is a needless and selfishly designed infringement on 
the rights of the citizen.” He says: “To an extent which 
I have not observed elsewhere, a strong antagonism to 
the health and medical laws was found very general among 
lawyers.” 

In the struggle of the race for civil liberty and against 
the tyranny of power in high places, lawyers have often 
been conspicuous for their defense of popular rights, and 
there is some encouragement to know that these political 
doctors cannot deceive the lawyers, even though they 
have successfully bamboozled a good part of our lay citi¬ 
zens, and in many instances persuaded State legislatures 
to confer absolute power upon them. 

We have not the time to examine all the various State 
Medical laws to ascertain to what extent this proposed 
surrender has been made, but we do find that it has been 
done, for all practical purposes, in Alabama, Vermont, 
California, Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, 
New Hampshire, New York and Wisconsin. 

It would seem that with such power as they already pos¬ 
sess, they ought to be satisfied. But that they are not and 
will not be until they are endowed with plenary authority, 


57 


not only over the practice of medicine, but over the manu¬ 
facture and sale of drugs and medicines, and over everything 
else relating to the public health, is evident from Dr. Sanders' 
proposal and that of Dr. McCormack cited above. And 
that they are not the only high priests in medicine 
who have made this proposal, is evident from a paper 
entitled. “LAW, THE FOUNDATION OF STATE MEDI¬ 
CINE,’’ by another shining light of the American Medical 
Association, Dr. Samuel G. Dixon, of Harrisburg, Pa., 
which we find on page 1926 of the Journal o} the American 
Medical Association for June 8th, 1907. He says: 

“It is not too much to say that on State Medicine depends the 
happiness of our people, and the success of our nation. The varied 
industries on which we depend for our comforts, the wealth which 
enables us to enjoy them, and the arts of civilization winch adorn and 
diversify our lives are but the fruitage of the tree whose root is health.” 

Continuing, he says, in answer, probably, to the objection 
of the lawyers, to which Dr. McCormack refers: 

“It is idle to prate of the enforcement of sanitary laws as an in¬ 
fringement of personal liberty. Submission to reasonable personal 
restrictions intended for the welfare of all is the very foundation stone 
of civilized liberty.” 

And he declares that the individual who insists “on 
what he calls his own rights” when the question of giving 
to him and his Association the power they seek is under 
consideration, is “an undesirable citizen of the republic.” 
He then goes on, as does every one of them when discussing 
this question of larger power for themselves, to eulogize the 
Japanese army, in which, during*the war with Russia, as he 
claims, the mortality from general causes scarcely exceeded 
those under ordinary conditions of life, and says of the 
Japanese physicians that, “in their particular branch of the 
service, these men were supreme.” He then argues for like 
power to be conferred on the organized profession in this 
country. The doctor is not content to carry on an educa¬ 
tional campaign to bring about the adoption of his views, for 
lie declares that “compulsion, not persuasion, is the keynote 
of State Medicine.” “Let it be understood” he continues, 


58 


“that no matter how great efforts we may make to educate 
the people, unless we have the lex scripta —the written 
law, to fall back on, State Medicine, while it may be a 
beautiful science, can never be a practical art. * * * 

The great majority of mankind are neither wise enough 
voluntarily to submit themselves to the requirements of 
sanitary law for the sake of preserving their own health 
and that of their loved ones, or righteous enough to be 
willing to exercise self-denial and repress the cravings of 
avarice to save others from sickness, suffering and death. 
* * * But the law we must have. These laws 

must reach into all the relations of life. As their basis 
they must start with the prompt and accurate registra¬ 
tion of births, deaths and marriages, and of the presence 
of transmissible and communicable diseases, and they 
must embrace the control of epidemics by domiciliary 
quarantine; the supervision of the transportation of 
both the quick and the dead, and the burial of the 
dead, the construction, heating and ventilation of our 
homes and public buildings; the protection of water 
supplies and the restoration to purity of our polluted 
streams and lakes; the manifold occupations and indus¬ 
tries of the people; the protection of food-stuffs, including 
milk and other beverages, and of drugs, from adultera¬ 
tion and impurity; the education of physicians, dentists 
and veterinarians, and barring our doors against the intro¬ 
duction of communicable diseases and pestilence from for¬ 
eign countries.” 

He continues: “Thus we have a State system of sanitary 
administration complete and symmetrical, its head at the 
seat of power in the State, imtrammeled in the exercise 
of authority, reaching down through the subdivisions of 
county and township to the people; and a department in 
daily touch with every nook and corner of the State through 
its faithful allies, the physicians of the Commonwealth.” 

“The faithful allies, the physicians of the Common¬ 
wealth,” are, of course, only those physicians who belong 

59 


to and are in good standing in the State and county associa¬ 
tions. And as all of these minor associations are but 
integral parts of the American Medical Association, 
Dr. Dixon’s proposition is for the State Establish¬ 
ment of that System of Medicine for which the 
American Medical Association stands. 

But it is not merely control by the individual States 
which the American Medical Association extremists desire. 
They seek also to establish a National Department of Health, 
the head of which shall have a place in the President’s 
cabinet, and upon which department shall be conferred 
absolute and complete power over medical affairs not 
covered by the State laws. 

The scope of the proposed Department has been out¬ 
lined by one of its advocates as follows: 

1. It seems desirable that a United States National Department 
of Health should be established, having as its head a secretary, who 
shall be a member of the executive cabinet. 

2. The purpose of the department should be to take all measures 
calculated, in the judgment of experts, to decrease deaths, to decrease 
sickness, and to increase physical and mental efficiency of citizens. 

3. It should consist of the following bureaus: 

National Bureau of Infant Hygiene. 

National Bureau of Education and Schools. 

National Bureau of Sanitation. 

National Bureau of Pure Food. 

National Bureau of Registration of Physicians and Surgeons. 

National Bureau of Registration of Drugs, Druggists and Drug 
Manufacturers. 

National Bureau of Registration of Institutions of Public and 
Private Relief, Correction, Detention and Residence. 

National Bureau of Organic Diseases. 

National Bureau of Quarantine. 

National Bureau of Health Information. 

National Bureau of Immigration. 

National Bureau of Labor Conditions. 

National Bureau of Research, requiring statistics. 

National Bureau of Research, requiring laboratories and equip¬ 
ment. 

It is urged that $100,000,000 be annually appropriated 
to support the Medical Establishment. 

To make a show of popular support for this measure, 
they have organized what they call a “Committee of One 
Hundred,” and have induced many eminent men to lend 


60 


their names and influence to the scheme in a manner and 
for the purpose of hiding the fact that this committee is 
under the influence and control of the American Medical 
Association ringsters. The purpose of this committee is to 
advocate the measure and popularize it with the people. 
A magazine is published for the purpose of propaganda, 
entitled “American Health.” Knowing the weight which 
the names of those in high places has with the public, as 
might have been expected, they early applied to President 
Roosevelt for his endorsement. A letter came from the 
President, giving his approval in a general way to any 
scheme of legislation which promised to preserve the 
Nation’s health, though he carefully refrained from com¬ 
mitting himself to the particular plan which was proposed. 
It would seem that this letter was used in a way to make 
it falsely appear that the President had given his official 
endorsement to the project in its entirety; whereupon the 
President wrote again, declaring that “he emphatically 
disapproved of a Cabinet Officer being created at the head 
of a Department of Health, and that he was not willing to 
have his former letter used to create feeling for a new 
Cabinet Officer at the head of such a department.- So, 
“please,” continued the President, “do not use my letter 
at all if your body conclude to agitate for a Department 
of Health.” On the principle that half a loaf is better 
than no bread at all, the agitation for a Cabinet position 
has ceased, and with one voice they are now crying out 
for a Bureau of Health along the lines of the President’s 
suggestion. That they will get it, seems reasonably certain, 
for they induced all of the political parties in the late cam¬ 
paign to endorse it in their platforms, and the only ques¬ 
tion now is as to the extent of the powers with which it 
will be endowed. 

Such a startling scheme, one so comprehensive 
and well-laid out, so seriously propounded in the 
twentieth century and to the American people, is a 
revelation of the extraordinary state of mind of 


61 


these leaders of American Medicine, drunk with 
power and self-conceit. 

If any further evidence be required of the determina¬ 
tion of the Association to thoroughly control the situation, 
let it be furnished by the utterances of its accredited 
Walking Delegate, Dr. McCormack, as published in its own 
Official Organ of August 8th, 1908, He says: 

“Important actions and results in medical affairs almost universally 
favorable (to whom?), have followed each other with such rapid suc¬ 
cession since the reorganization movement began, that it is difficult 
to realize that it has occupied less than eight years of time. (He then 
goes on to describe in detail what has been accomplished.) ‘All of 
which/ he says, ‘ indicates what may reasonably be hoped for when 
the profession becomes as thoroughly organized and united, and as 
wisely led, and the public as appreciative, as will one day be possible. 
In a large percentage of the congressional districts/ he continues, 
‘the vote is sufficiently close that a properly organized profession can 
control the result, and the time has come for this influence to be ex¬ 
ercised. The average politician has a profound respect for organized 
vocations -which can control votes, and we owe it to humanity to exer¬ 
cise this power to the fullest extent.’ ” 

Of course every man “owes it to humanity” to get 
himself elected to office. But what we should like to ask 
Dr. McCormack is, if the entrance of physicians into poli¬ 
tics and the legislatures is for the urgent interests of 
humanity, why does it happen that these would-be legis¬ 
lators, who alone can give humanity what it needs, have 
to force themselves into office by so much scheming and 
intrigue? 

However, it has been definitelydetermined that the medi¬ 
cal profession shall go into politics—that is to say, the ring¬ 
leaders of organized medicine shall. Dr. Chas. A. L. Reed, of 
Cincinnati, a short time ago discovered that there were 
only four physicians in both houses of the last Congress 
of the United States, while the French Congress had ninety- 
two, and he blushes for the difference. So he started the 
political bee buzzing at the last convention of the American 
Medical Association, and incidentally launched his own 
political campaign. The Journal , of course, endorsed 
the movement, and all the understudies of the Journal 
in the various states, obedient to the hint from the big 

62 


boss, have been “whooping it lip” for Dr. Reed and for 
medicine in politics. In their infatuation over the new 
idea, physicians and medical writers seem to have even 
lost their sense of humor. The Evening Mail , a New York 
newspaper, commenting on the proposition in a humorous 
fashion, says: 

“To the tasks of political life the doctor can bring his skill in 
diagnosis, his knowledge of pathological conditions, the ability to jolly 
the individual, which is half his curative art, and a wide acquaintance 
with the people and needs of his district. He should make a good 
legislator. Every successful physician, indeed, is something of a 
politician in the treatment of his patients. Why should not the con¬ 
verse be true?” 

All of which the Buffalo Medical Journal gravely thinks 
“is a just comment, and one that gives forceful reasons 
why physicians may serve their fellow-citizens wisely in 
public life.” 

It was not as a statesman, or in the broad public in¬ 
terest that Dr. Reed and those who were behind his can¬ 
didacy sought his election to the Senate; but as a physician, 
and then, not as a broad representative of what a physi¬ 
cian stands for as a man among men, but as the delegate 
of medical bureaucracy. 

Certainly, a physician has as much right as any other 
man to aspire to a public office, but there is and can be no 
legitimate reason for his being there in his capacity as a 
medical man. We do not or should not elect men to 
legislatures because they are of this or that profession or 
calling, or because they belong to this or that religion; 
but because they are honest and capable men of affairs 
and as such are presumed to be competent to handle 
public questions in a broad and far-seeing fashion, in the 
impartial interests of all the people; and a movement 
emanating, not from the people nor even from the rank and 
file of medicine, but from its bureaucracy, to install phy¬ 
sicians in legislative office is, to say the least, an ex¬ 
ceedingly questionable, if not a most vicious exploitation 
of public interests. If a member of one of our religious 

63 


bodies were to seek public position by virtue only 
of his membership in that body, no true patriot 
would vote for him; and it is just as much con¬ 
trary to the public interests to elect to a responsible 
position a man who, like Dr. Reed, asked for the 
people’s votes, not as a statesman thoroughly ac¬ 
quainted with broad political questions, but simply 
as the representative of an organization of physi¬ 
cians, which is seeking to have special laws made 
for the aggrandizement of its own members. 


64 




























































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Fac-simide op One op the Pardons Granted Drs. J. N. and A. T. McCormack. 










































CHAPTER IX 


Some Startling Facts Concerning the Walking 
Delegate of the American Medical Union 


It may not be amiss at this place to strip the mask of 
patriotism from the face of another of the leaders in this 
‘'reform” movement, one to whom we have already re¬ 
ferred, and of whom we may have occasion to speak again. 
We mean no less a personage than Dr. J. N. McCormack, of 
Bowling Green, Ky., Chairman of the Committee on Or¬ 
ganization, and the Walking Delegate of the great Medical 
Union. His duties, as described by the Medical Sentinel 
of Portland, Ore. (an independent paper), “are to go about 
the country, nominally to ‘organize’ the profession, but 
actually, to feel out the pulse in the various localities, lay 
the wires, and provide that at each coming session only 
the ornamental officers shall go to the ‘unwashed out¬ 
side.’ ’ ’ But the scope of his activities is much larger than is 
here set forth. He is, in fact, the ‘‘Legislative Agent” of 
the great American Medical Union, and in that capacity has 
appeared before Congress and most of the State legislatures in 
the interests of the legislative schemes of his Association. He 
has also, as we learn from the Maryland Medical Journal, 
“visited every state in the Union and spoken before a 
countless number of both medical and lay meetings.” His 
addresses before the “lay meetings,” if we can judge from 
the accounts in the newspapers, have been most success¬ 
ful. He is suave in manner, of a most pleasing address, 
and possesses a charm of speech that is almost entrancing, 
if we can judge from the reports of his meetings, which 
appear regularly in the official organ. 

65 




We will say, however, that all these reports, as well as 
those which appear in the local newspapers of the towns 
he visits, are so similar in import and expression that they 
suggest the idea that they are carefully prepared by the 
same hand, their general style resembling that of Dr. McCor¬ 
mack himself. 

Quoting again from the Medical Sentinel, “he has much 
to say in his nice talks with his audiences about general 
good behavior of man to man. He tells of the brother¬ 
hood of man, of the duty we owe to our neighbors, and 
gives excellent hints on the way we should behave so that 
we may improve things in this world, instead of making 
them worse.” He captivates his audiences wherever he 
goes. Preachers and the members of the W. C. T. U. grow 
almost ecstatic when they hear him. In an article in the 
Journal of the American Medical Association, February 23d, 
1907, Dr. W. II. Sanders, of Montgomery, Ala. (the advo¬ 
cate of the State establishment of his System of Medicine, 
to which we have already made reference) tells us of 
the great impression he made on the people of Alabama. 
Says he: 

“The effect of the addresses on those laymen who heard them was 
profound and highly salutary. Indeed, the enthusiasm of the lay 
hearers was deeply aroused by the graphic view of the profession, its 
aims, its struggles, its unselfish and altruistic work, and, withal, its 
bickerings and jealousies, so luminously told by the speaker Every¬ 
where the expressions of appreciation and approval on the part of the 
lay hearers were lavish, cordial and emphatic. As specimens of ex¬ 
pressions used, the following are quoted: An Episcopal rector said: 

‘ Doctor, if you will remain here until Sunday, I will insist on your 
occupying my pulpit.' A lady said: ‘Doctor, that is the best sermon 
I have heard in a long time.'" 

After one of his popular addresses at New Orleans, as 
we learn from the Times Democrat, of March 28th, 1908, 
“A spontaneous outburst of appreciation marked the end 
of his lecture, and Archbishop Blenk was introduced. The 
Bishop said that the lecturer had so thoroughly wound 
himself around his heart that he felt like throwing his 
arms around him and thanking him in the name of New 
Orleans. He said that a distinct boon had been conferred 


GG 


upon the community by Dr. McCormack in his lecture, 
* * * and turning to the lecturer, he expressed the wish 
that the blessings of New Orleans and Louisiana accompany 
him. Rabbi I. L. Leucht, following, spoke complimentary 
of Dr. McCormack, endorsing his utterances and observing 
that the doctor and the clergyman should always be 
friends. Another clergyman, a protestant, Dr. Beverly 
Warner, declared that ‘what we have heard, has stirred 
our souls, Many of these things we have heard before 
but Dr. McCormack has crystalized them, as it were, 
showing them in a way that makes them memorable. 
I can only reiterate what Dr. Leucht and Archbishop 
Blenk have said. I pledge my influence and support to 
help any move by doctors to purge the drug store of the 
horrors that roost on every shelf, and to brush the cobwebs 
of superstition from the minds of so many of our men and 
women. Dr. McCormack’s lecture is a message of uplift; it 
is hope and inspiration.’” 

In this lecture, as in all his addresses to the people, Dr. 
McCormack pleaded for the abolition of the sale of patent 
medicines, and grew eloquent in describing the “great suf¬ 
fering from preventable sickness and death, and of the 
drain upon our material resources therefrom, which,” he 
said, “is almost beyond the conception of the finite mind.” 
He then dished out a lot of statistics, telling his audience 
that during the last year “1,500,000 persons died and 
4,200,000 were sick, involving the comfort and material 
prosperity of 5,000,000 homes and 25,000,000 people.” At 
least, two-thirds of all this suffering, sorrow, death and 
material loss was preventable, all of which could have been 
prevented, but for the refusal of Congress and the State 
legislatures to give medical men (meaning, of course, his 
clique) the proper “assistance in their unselfish war” 
against pestilence and disease. He made a particularly 
eloquent plea for the betterment of public sanitation and 
was hot in his denunciations of those who pollute our streams 
and lakes. On this point he said: 

67 


“If all infectious discharges from every case now in your State 
could be collected and destroyed until they all recover or die, and 
proper attention be given to ventilation, open air exercise and the 
nourishment of those predisposed to it, you need never have another 
case unless it be an imported one. You had a large death rate from 
typhoid fever. This is not only a preventable, but the most typical 
of the filth diseases. In cities it usually gets into the mouth through 
infected water. Until the results proved so disastrous as to force 
better methods, at an aggregate cost of hundreds of millions, cities of 
the older civilization discharged their sewage into streams and lakes 
which were the only source of w T ater supply for their own and other 
populations, and typhoid fever was an annual scourge. Instead of 
profiting by these disastrous experiences, we are rapidly converting 
our streams and lakes into open sewers and pools, regardless of the 
complex sanitary and economic problems thus created for our own 
generation and the millions to follow us.” 

He wound up with another strong plea for popular 
support for an increase of power for physicians, leaving the 
inference that with the granting of this additional power 
all the evils he had so graphically depicted would vanish 
forever. 

In view of all this professed concern for the 
public health, but more particularly as it is affected 
by the pollution of our water supply and by de¬ 
fective sewage, and when it is remembered that 
Dr. McCormack is a professed expert on public 
hygiene, it may astonish those who do not know 
the man, to learn that he has been prosecuted in 
his own town for essentially the same offense he 
so strongly denounces in others. While telling 
the public that it is a disgrace for any person to 
have typhoid fever, he exposes, as it would seem, 
his own neighbors and friends to its ravages. 
While publicly advocating the strict enforcement 
of health laws, he apparently violates the health 
laws of his own community. 

In Bowling, Green, Ky., Dr. McCormack, his son, Dr. 
A. T. McCormack (who seems to be a kind of medical Poo- 
bah, since he is Secretary of the Kentucky State Medical 
Association, Secretary of the Warren-Edmondson Counties 
Medical Society, Secretary of the Warren County Board 
of Health, Editor of the Journal oj the Kentucky Medical 


68 


Association , Representative of the House of Delegates of 
the American Medical Association, and a Sanitary Inspector 
for the State Board of Health of Kentucky, of which his 
father is Secretary), own an office building. It houses one 
of the largest business colleges in Kentucky, and a large 
number of people are daily gathered in it. 

As far back as February, 1903, complaint was made to 
the city health officers that the excrement from the closets 
in the McCormack building was being run into the open 
drain instead of into the sewer, thereby endangering the 
health and lives of the citizens of the town. On February 
14th, 1903, the Board of Public Works at a called meeting, 
took cognizance of this complaint, and it was ordered 
that the McCormacks be given permission to open a sink 
for the purpose of connecting the closets of their building 
with the city’s sewer system. The Board of Health was 
represented at this meeting, and it was stated that Dr. 
McCormack had been served with notice to cease using 
the open drain as a sewer, and had agreed to comply with 
the demand. The authorities, it appears, thought he had 
kept his promise, until, during the summer of 1907, it was 
discovered by some workmen that the open drain was still 
being used. The Bowling Green Board of Health finally 
caused to be sworn out three warrants for the arrest of the 
McCormacks, charging them with “permitting a nuisance, 
source of filth and cause of sickness to exist on their prop¬ 
erty.” Trial was set for September 25th, 1907, but Dr. 
J. N. McCormack was out of the city (presumably, preach¬ 
ing hygiene and telling his audience that it was “a disgrace 
to have typhoid fever”), and hearing was continued until 
October 21st, on which date trial was set for October 23d. 

On the latter date all the witnesses were present, 
and the court ready to proceed with the hearing, 
when the prosecution was dumbfounded at a sud¬ 
den and unexpected turn. The McCormacks, un¬ 
willing to have the facts made a matter of court 
record, and before any evidence was taken or they 

69 


had offered a word of defense, presented three 
separate pardons, dated October 4th, from the Gov¬ 
ernor of the State, each covering one of the offenses 
charged. Upon the presentation of these pardons the 
proceedings were stopped at once, for it was of no use to try 
an alleged offender who was equipped with pardons. It is 
significant that the pardons were procured nearly three 
weeks in advance of trial. 

Indeed the procuring of the pardons was in itself a 
tacit admission of guilt. Innocent men neither need nor 
seek pardons—at least, until every means of clearing them¬ 
selves has been exhausted. They are more concerned under 
such circumstances about defending their reputations than 
they are in trying to evade a small money penalty. Dr. 
McCormack apparently feared that to proceed with the 
trial of his case would result in a conviction, and his request 
for a pardon ahead of the trial we shall accept as a con¬ 
fession that he was guilty of the very crime against human 
life and public safety against which he has inveighed so 
much in his harrangues to the public. 

The Public Health laws of Kentucky, as printed in the 
report of the State Board of Health, of which Dr. J. N. 
McCormack is Secretary, make it the duty of the County 
Boards of Health to report to the State Board at least once 
every three months: 

1st. On the character of the infectious, epidemic and communi¬ 
cable diseases prevailing in the county. 

2d. The number reported as afflicted with such diseases. 

3d. As to the action taken by such Boards in arresting the prog¬ 
ress of such epidemic and the visible effect of such action, etc. 

The report of the State Board of Health for the period 
covered by the drain polluting episode above mentioned, 
contains reports to the State Board from every county in 
the State, except two. One of these is the county in 
which the McCormacks reside and were prose¬ 
cuted, and in which the younger McCormack is 
Secretary of the Board of Health! 


70 


So much for one phase of the character of this great 
American Medical Association leader and politician. 

Another phase is revealed in his attitude toward the 
retail drug trade, which trade has often been the subject 
of his vicious comment and assault. As spokesman for 
the American Medical Association, while “whooping it up” 
before the W. C. T. U. at Nashville, Tenn., he said: 

“The average drug store in the United States is little more than a 
saloon for the sale of disguised alcohol and ‘dope/ under the pretense 
of patent medicines. * * * But this is not the worst thing that 
is going on in the drug stores. * * * Seventy-five per cent of the 

diseases of young men resulting from immorality are not treated 
scientifically by doctors, but they are treated by little boy clerks in 
drug stores, who laugh about these things and make a joke of them, 
and thus encourage young men to be immoral. And that is not yet 
the worst either!” 

To say nothing of the injustice—the absurdity of a 
charge so sweeping and indiscriminating leveled against a 
whole body of his fellow-citizens, one can not repress a 
feeling of disgust and loathing for the creature who would 
select an audience of pure and respectable women before 
whom to discuss so indelicate a subject. 

In his report to the American Medical Association meet- 
ng at Atlantic City, June, 1907, and published in the Jour¬ 
nal, June 15th, 1907, he says: 

“At every capital visited, I have found a strong force of drug men 
working under the direction of expert lobbyists representing the 
National Association of Retail Druggists, backed by the proprietary 
interests, against the legislation proposed by the profession in the in¬ 
terest of pure food and drugs, with all their expenses borne by that 
body. In every instance an attempt w r as being systematically and 
often successfully made to confuse the minds of legislators by the 
introduction of decoy bills prepared by their central bureau, but 
cunningly altered as to wording in the various States to hide their 
origin. * * * As a real friend of the pharmacist, one who has 

always been wedded to the prescription method of dispensing, the 
discovery of this almost universal ascendency of the quack interests 
over this trade was a painful one. It evidently means that we have 
come to the parting of the ways with druggists, and we must arrange 
to dispense for ourselves, as is being done in other countries, unless 
prompt steps are taken in a comprehensive way to restore proper 
relations with them.” 

No one knows the falsity, the injustice of these charges 
better than Dr. McCormack himself. It is true that the 


71 


druggists have not blindly accepted and shouted for every 
bill which Dr. McCormack and his fellow political doctors 
have proposed, but no body of druggists has appeared 
before the legislature of any State in opposition to the en¬ 
actment of reasonable food and drug legislation, nor were 
they “backed by the proprietary interests, with all their 
expenses paid by that body.” As we have shown and as 
has been proved in the earlier part of this article, druggists 
have in many cases taken the initiative in such legislation, 
and have invariably lent their aid to the public officials in 
the prosecutions of persons charged with violating drug and 
pharmacy laws. 

This remarkable statement of Dr. McCormack’s was 
called to the attention of Mr. Thos. V. Wooten, at the time, 
Secretary of the National Retail Druggists’ Association, 
who, speaking for the retail druggists of the country, said: 

“Just what -was the mental condition of Dr. McCormack when he 
made the statements referred to before the American Medical Associa¬ 
tion and subsequently at the meeting of the American Pharmaceutical 
Association, is a conjecture. Those most familiar with the doctor’s 
habits can answer w r ith greatest certainty of being correct in their 
diagnosis. Judged by the actual facts, however, the doctor’s friends 
must admit that if he was accountable for his actions, he laid himself 
open to the charge of being a knave or a fool.” 

Mr. Wooten then related how in December, 1906, the 
Executive Committee of the National Association of Retail 
Druggists called a conference of the representatives of the 
' drug interests to prepare a bill based upon and in harmony 
with the then recently enacted pure food and drug law, for 
recommendation to the various State legislatures. After 
stating that this conference was held in Chicago in January, 
1907, and that a draft of a State law was prepared, the 
deviations of which from the National law were only such 
as were necessary to adapt it for State purposes, except 
that a provision was added which exempted United States 
Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary preparations and 
physicians’ prescriptions from certain label requirements, 
Mr. Wooten continues: 


72 


“With these facts before us, as to the conferees, the character of 
the conference and the contents of the bill prepared as the result of 
its labors, it is difficult to understand just what Dr. McCormack meant 
when he spoke of ‘decoy bills.’ * * * If the provision relating to 

the exemption of physicians’ prescriptions from label requirement is 
objectionable to Dr. McCormack, as the chief organizer of the American 
Medical Association, we should be glad to know it, so that proper efforts 
may be made to suitably amend the laws in this particular. Appar¬ 
ently, the concession to the medical profession was a serious mistake. 
Dr. McCormack, at least seems to have made it an excuse for falsifica¬ 
tion and villification of the lowest type.” 

This letter from Mr. Wooten was given wide publicity 
in the journals of the drug trade, but brought no denial 
from Dr. McCormack or his friends, who, by their silence, 
tacitly admit that he will not scruple to employ misrepre¬ 
sentation and slander when he thinks they will further the 
machinations of his Association. 

Now, the lives and characters of these two men, Dr. 
Reed and Dr. McCormack, are an open book. The clique 
which controls the American Medical Association is as 
familiar with the facts as they are here related, as we are. 
But no word of censure has been heard from headquarters 
for either of these men. On the other hand, the official 
organ of the Association most fulsomely praises them on 
every occasion. One of these gentlemen is selected by the 
clique as its candidate for the United States Senate, 
where, had he been elected, he could represent the clique 
and push its schemes before that body, and the other before 
the State legislatures and the public. Their conduct is 
thus sanctioned and condoned, and the clique becomes 
responsible for the same. Their policies become the policies 
of the Association. Their deeds become the deeds of the 
Association also. And this is the great benevolent, philan¬ 
thropic, altruistic American Medical Association! 



73 


CHAPTER X 


The Alleged Altruism of the Medical 
Trust Contrasted with Its Own 
Words and Deeds. 


It is, we are aware, commonly looked upon as a grace¬ 
less and indelicate thing to criticise the medical profession; 
and the political schemer in the high places of organized 
medicine is always quick to take advantage of this senti¬ 
ment. No sooner is he attacked for his greed for power and 
his unscrupulous methods of attaining it than 'lie hastens 
to hide behind the skirts of the profession at large—the 
sentimental and picturesque ideal of the profession that 
the public cherishes in its heart—waxing eloquent about 
the sacredness of the calling, reciting its long list of honor¬ 
able men and achievements, and setting forth its noble and 
disinterested aims. All of which is very true in its proper 
place, but like “the flowers that bloom in the spring, it has 
nothing to do with the case,” and simply serves as a means 
of artfully confusing the issues and directing the limelight 
still more powerfully upon the schemer’s own person. 

As to these attributes of lofty altruism and disinterested 
philanthropy that popularly attach to the medical man, 
while we would be the last to belittle the work and spirit 
of the profession in general, we are not—and we believe 
that most sane men agree with us—disposed to the opin¬ 
ion that doctors are constituted differently from any other 
men. Human nature is the same wherever it is found, 
and in whatever particular occupation it may be engaged. 
Physicians are no more or less than human, and are actuated 


74 




by the same motives, moved by the same considerations, 
and subject to the same frailties and temptations as any 
other class of men—with perhaps less, perhaps more, op¬ 
portunities to exercise those human qualities. 

At all events it would seem to be more the part of modesty 
and sincerity to allow the other party to pass out compli¬ 
ments of this kind. The frequent and rather fulsome as¬ 
surance given us by certain members of the profession— 
usually by those who do the least charitable work—of its 
high aims and altruistic character, irresistibly suggest the 
shrewd misgiving of the Queen in Hamlet, “the lady doth 
protest too much, methinks.” And when one penetrates 
behind the scene a little, back of these dress-parade ora¬ 
tions where, off-guard, the leaders hold their councils of 
war, one sees the contrast between the ostensible and the 
real motives that inspire the campaigns for the restriction 
of those things which conflict with their very mundane 
interests. 

For instance, the Journal of the American Medical Associ¬ 
ation, in May, 1907, in a burst of self-admiration, exclaimed, 
“The organized medical profession is caring for all 
the people all the time. The altruism and human¬ 
ity of medicine is higher than anything the world 
has ever hitherto witnessed!” 

Excellent! Doubtless it is in pursuance of this disinter¬ 
ested concern for humanity’s welfare that the Journal copy¬ 
rights its every issue, hampering the wider spread of medical 
knowledge that is presumed to be of value in the crusade 
against disease and death; refuses to exchange with the 
independent journals; and with a high hand denies the 
Journal to the Association of Medical Libraries. Probably 
it is this same philanthropic spirit which moves the Jour¬ 
nal, while keeping its own knowledge strictly to itself by 
copyright, to demand that manufacturers shall disclose all 
of their valuable trade secrets so that the Journal may 
publish them for the use of its readers, to its own and its 
readers’ pecuniary profit. 


75 


Certainly, it must be this high altruism and humanity 
that inspired the protest recently voiced by the Chicago 
Medical Society, a constituent branch of the American 
Medical Association, against the Commissioner of Public 
Health for placing the agencies of protection against con¬ 
tagious and infectious diseases within the easy reach of 
the indigent of the city, on the ground that it curtailed 
the incomes of the practicing physicians of Chicago. 

It was stated in a paper read by Dr. Whalen that 
these medical charities amounted to $2,500 a year for each 
registered physician, and it was resolved: 

“That we regard the action of the Department of Health in 
these respects as unlawful, unethical, and as fostering the abuse 
of medical charity; and that we demand that immediate measures 
be taken by the Council of the Chicago Medical Society to eradi¬ 
cate the abuse of medical charities.” 

It was also demanded that the Health Department dis¬ 
continue unnecessary interference with the private practi¬ 
tioner, and thus “cease depriving him of his patients.” 

The Chicago Medical Society might, perhaps 
with good reason, have attacked indiscriminate 
and extravagant public charity on the ground of 
false economic policy; there are, indeed, a great 
many, even philanthropic people, who regard it in 
this light. But these Association physicians did 
nothing of the kind. They looked at the matter 
purely from a cold-blooded, mercenary standpoint. 
Their pocket books seem to have been their only 
concern. All of which most beautifully harmon¬ 
izes with that highfalutin’ apostrophe of the Jour¬ 
nal, about “caring for all the people all the time,” 
with an altruism and humanity “higher than any¬ 
thing the world has hitherto witnessed! ” 

The arrant hypocrisy of the pretensions to philan¬ 
thropy on the part of these doctor-politicians ought to be 
apparent to the most guileless individual. The fact is, 
as we have shown, when talking in their own societies and 
when the public ear is not attending and when they have 

76 


nothing to gain by assuming a benevolent air, they prac¬ 
tically acknowledge that they are “out for the stuff.” 

This selfish motive, this sordid instinct, is perhaps more 
frequently and clearly disclosed in their discussions of the 
proprietary medicine question than in anything else—prob¬ 
ably because it most directly and vitally affects their pocket 
books. On every subject there are grounds for honest 
differences of opinion, and it might well be that they 
could bring to bear reasonable objections of greater or less 
weight against proprietaries. Certainly, these rem¬ 
edies are not all of equal merit, and, undoubtedly, there 
are some worthless, and, occasionally vicious, products of 
the kind upon the market. Therefore, if the clique used 
proper discrimination—if the war were against the really 
worthless or vicious products, or if, even the fight against 
proprietaries as a class were honestly based upon some real 
or assumed principle (provided that principle had regard 
solely for the public health), we would not be disposed to 
quarrel with them, even though we might dissent from their 
views. But here, as in nearly everything they do or say, 
the spirit of avarice and cupidity predominates; and the 
I ago in their breasts, rendering them insensible alike to 
the restraints of conscience and the cries of the sick, seems 
always to be calling out: “Put money in thy purse!” 

For instance, the Journal, May 6th, 1905, urges physi¬ 
cians not to prescribe even the pharmaceutical specialties 
manufactured and advertised exclusively to them, giving 
as its reason, not that they are entirely bad, not that they 
are without therapeutic value, but “the patient will 
become acquainted with what the preparation is 
good for, and will then buy direct,” and consequently 
some doctor will be cut out of a prescription fee. There is 
here a practical admission that the proscribed remedy has, 
at least, some merit, for the patient would not be likely to 
“buy it direct,” unless he found or thought he found that 
it benefited him, and to an appreciable extent. 


77 


The California State Medical Journal , quoted above, 
in its issue for September, 1905, says: 

“Ask any pharmacist what will eventually happen if you 
give a patient a prescription for one of these proprietaries. He 
will tell you that in due course the patient, or his wife, or his 
mother, or his children, or his sisters, or his cousins, or his aunts, 
or his wife’s friends will come into the store and buy more of the 
same stuff—but without a prescription. In other words, you 
have lost a patient.” 

In an article in the Journal of the American Medical 
Association , March 18th, 1905, it is charged “that the drug¬ 
gists are cutting the doctors’ throats by selling patent 
medicines,” and an implied threat is made to the druggists 
in the words that “they ought to see the propriety 
of not working against the doctors’ interests,” that 
is, by selling patent medicines to the people, and 
in this way cutting the doctors out of prescription 
fees. 

Dr. Horatio C. Wood, Jr., one of the leaders in the 
present crusade, in the Journal of the American Medical 
Association, June 10th, 1905, makes a calculation of the 
amount spent only in advertising proprietaries, and says 
that advertising “represents just so much as coming 
out of the pockets of the doctors.” 

In an article in the Journal of the American Medical 
Association, September 9th, 1905, doctors are told that it 
should be a rule that no proprietary medicine should be 
delivered to the patient in the original package — 

this precaution being taken to prevent the pur¬ 
chase of future supplies without a prescription. 

Dr. Horatio C. Wood, Jr., again in the Journal of the 
American Medical Association, June 10th, 1905, speaking 
of physicians’ proprietaries says: “Indeed, the em¬ 
ployment of these fancy-named specialties is a 
direct temptation to self-medication,” by which, 
of course, the doctor is the loser, since it cuts him 
out of a prescription fee. 


78 


In an article in the Journal of the American Medical 
Association , March 4th, 1905, objection is made to pro¬ 
prietaries on the ground that “they encourage the 
patient to prescribe for himself, and, as the pro¬ 
prietary manufacturer becomes richer, the physi¬ 
cian becomes poorer.” It is the doctors’ interests, and 
not those of the people that are here considered, it seems 
to us. 

And lastly, it was disgust at the frequent expression 
of such contradictory and hypocritical sentiments that 
caused the editor of the Medical Times to exclaim: 

“This (the proprietary medicine question) is a subject vital 
to every physician. We merely repeat here the specific state¬ 
ment we have frequently made, to the effect that in one year 
sixty-two million dollars has been expended in patent medi¬ 
cines, enough to give every practitioner a yearly income of 
$2,000. In the face of such facts as these, all talk of humanity, 
altruism, self-abnegation and the like becomes cheap and nau¬ 
seating. Such buncombe should give way to homely common 
sense.” 

Let it be borne in mind that here, as everywhere, it is 
the clique and not the real practitioner who is doing all 
this talking and who makes confession to these sordid mo¬ 
tives. The honest practitioner has but one purpose in 
view, and that is to bring relief to his patient. And he em¬ 
ploys the means which he thinks will best effect this pur¬ 
pose, undeterred by any such fear as that the patient may 
at some time get the same remedy without an order from 
him and thus cause him to lose the one or two dollars which 
he charges for writing a prescription. 

If we had the space we could fill a volume with just 
such extracts, revealing how these association doctors dis¬ 
cuss this matter among themselves and in their journals, 
where there is no necessity for donning the cloak of hypo¬ 
crisy or to cant and prate about the public good. But. we 
shall waste no more time on this unpleasant business. What 
we have printed is sufficient to strip this medico-political 
clique of their altruistic pretensions and to exhibit them in 
all their cold-hearted brutality. 


79 


Now, the fact that the doctor does not wear 
wings, but walks the earth with the rest of us, and 
is amenable to the same earthly influences as other 
men, does not in itself constitute any count against 
him. It is no discredit to a man that he partakes of 
our common human nature. There is no reason on 
earth why the doctor should not be concerned 
about his income and his other economic affairs, 
as long as he does not tread upon others’ rights in 
trying to improve them. But it is disgraceful and 
contemptible when intelligent men in the high 
places of medicine encourage the pretensions to an 
altruism and philanthropy which they do not pos¬ 
sess and which nobody expects them to possess, 
for the furtherance of their selfish schemes, and to 
serve as a cloak behind which to shield themselves 
from the righteous attack of men, at least equally 
honest as themselves, who do not make any such 
pretensions. 

Incidentally it may be remarked that these same pre¬ 
tenders to high altruism and disinterestedness are by no 
means backward in throwing stones at members of other 
callings, which are very apt to rebound and make ugly 
cracks in their own glass houses. Charges have been 
bandied about by the leading spirits of organized medicine 
with airy recklessness, as we have seen, about the retail 
druggists; and pharmaceutical manufacturers have been 
sweepingly condemned for greed and avarice. 

“Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself, 

Are much condemned to have an itching palm.” 

Witness the case of the charge made by Dr. Frank 
Billings, the high priest of medical ethics and a leader in 
this great reform movement, against the estate of the late 
Marshall Field, of $25,000 for seven days’ service. Talk of 
greed and avarice! What was this but the quintessence 
of extortion? It is no excuse to plead that the dead man’s 
estate was rich and could pay it. There was absolutely no 

80 


consideration of values on which to base such a charge. 
The services were certainly not worth the money to the sick 
man, for he died! Nor could the doctor’s own time and 
service be rated at such a figure, for it is at the rate of 
S3,572 per day. The only possible basis, that we can see, 
upon which such a fee could be figured is on the principle 
of the railroads, of “exacting all the traffic will bear,” and 
if that is not the essential principle of extortion, then we 
know nothing about economics. 

It is not necessary that we risk incurring the opprobrium 
which, as we have said, attaches to those who turn 
the light on the frailties of these infallible ones, and, 
especially, when it has been so effectively done by 
medical men themselves. Speaking of this very question 
of extortionate charges, Dr. George M. Gould of Philadel¬ 
phia, author of “Gould’s Medical Directories,” “Biographic 
Clinics,” etc., in an address before the Medical Alumni of 
the Syracuse University, June 11, 1907, pertinently said: 

“Of all amusing and yet disgusting things we see every day, 
the most egregious is the fawning upon and adulation of the 
rich sick and the sick rich by our hysteria doctors and leading 
consultants. Thousands of these pitiful patients are being ‘rest- 
cured’ out of their money and health with no attempt to learn the 
causes of their diseases, and with fear that the known causes 
will become widely known. As a profession we have catered to 
this gallery-beloved melodrama. Our professors and big-wigs 
have played the game of strutting before the groundlings and of 
demanding many thousand-dollar fees for cures that often never 
cured, and for operations that frequently were unnecessary. The 
medical profession should long ago have stopped this quackery 
of $5,000 and $10,000 fees. Every one of us knows it is charla¬ 
tanism.” 


81 


CHAPTER XI 


The Deplorable State of American 

Medicine. 


We have already seen how they themselves admit in 
their society meetings that their main objection to pro¬ 
prietaries is that in proportion as they are used, the num¬ 
ber of their own prescriptions decreases; and, sometimes 
in lucid moments of realization, sometimes in fits of inter¬ 
nal jealousy, to which they are humanely susceptible, they 
also turn an illuminating ray on each other, and occasion¬ 
ally some particularly glaring blunder sets them in the 
blaze of public criticism. 

We have no particular interest in showing up their fail¬ 
ings, except to illustrate the truth that “the way to keep 
the streets of Jerusalem clean, is for each man to sweep 
his own door-step,” and to demonstrate that the condition 
of the medical man’s door-step is not yet in such a state of 
cleanliness as to warrant his officious eagerness to perform the 
task for his neighbor. 

That conditions are not ideal in medicine is a matter 
of general knowledge among medical men; and these condi¬ 
tions cannot much longer be concealed from the public. 
Indeed, if we may believe Mr. Bok, the editor of the Ladies' 
Home Journal, a public exposure is even now impending. In 
an address before the Philadelphia Branch of the American 
Pharmaceutical Association December 3, 1907, a report of 
which we find in the Journal of the American Medical Associa¬ 
tion, he said: “That it might be of interest to know that in 


82 




two editorial offices of the country there is a fearful arraign¬ 
ment against the medical profession, absolutely appalling, 
in consideration of the names attached. Were that put 
before the American public it would cause such a distrust 
of the physician, such an unrest and upsetting of confidence, 
as has not been known for generations.” And he signifi¬ 
cantly added, “It has been deemed wise not to publish it— 
yet!" ' 

This announcement of Mr. Bok is rather surprising, 
in view of the fact that three or four years ago he worked 
hand-in-glove with the American Medical Association crowd, 
going so far as to prepare the drastic drug bill, bearing his 
name, and which the American Medical Association clique 
adopted as its own and urged for passage before the State 
Legislatures. 

In the matter of education, which goes right to the 
root of the question, if we are to believe the high priests of 
organized medicine themselves, conditions are deplorable 
beyond conception. 

According to a report of a meeting of the Association’s 
Council on Medical Education, which appeared in the 
Chicago Tribune for April 30th, 1907, it was stated by a 
member present that: 

* “There are on an average, four thousand doctors graduated 
every year by the medical colleges of America, and about three- 
fourths of them are utterly incompetent and should never be per¬ 
mitted to practice medicine.” 

In the same report Dr. Chester Mayer, member of the 
State Board of Examiners of Kentucky is quoted as follows: 

“The evil of incompetent doctors, turned out by inadequate 
schools strikes down to the roots of the educational system. Pri¬ 
mary education often is a farce. I have taught students for years, 
knowing only too well that they, for the most part, did not under¬ 
stand what I was saying because of the defects in their primary 
education. Yet these men will be coached for examinations, and 
will pass them, while they are almost entirely ignorant of the 
subjects in which they are examined.” 

Dr. W. T. Means, Chairman of the Judicial Council of 
American Medical Colleges is reported as having said: 

♦The Virginia Medical Semi-Monthly puts the number at seven thousand. 

83 



“Some men qualified as medical practitioners are deficient in 
knowledge of bacteriology, chemistry, physiology and anatomy, 
i doubt if some could make a laboratory test for typhoid fever. 
I have written to twenty-five State Boards and I find that fifty- 
eight per cent of the men who fail at their final examinations 
pass on a second examination a few weeks after. In the date 
intervening, where did they get their knowledge? They did not 
get it. They were simply crammed with the answers to those 
questions which it was expected they would be asked, and they 
answered as parrots, not knowing what they were saying.” 

Dr. Henry Beates, Jr., President of the Board of Medi¬ 
cal Examiners for Pennsylvania is quoted in the public 
press as having said: 

“The failure of twenty-three per cent of the doctors who took 
the examination for licensure this month (December, 1906) be¬ 
fore the State Board of Medical Examiners, proves the crying 
necessity for an investigation of the actual manner in which the 
medical college is doing its work. * * * About one-quarter 

of the papers show a degree of illiteracy that renders the can¬ 
didates for licensure incapable of understanding medicine.” 

In the Bulletin 0 } the American Academy 0 } Medicine , 
February, 1908, Dr. Beates characterizes the existing medi¬ 
cal college curriculum as monstrous, and declares that its 
remodeling is the crying need of the hour. 

On the same subject, J. Richards Parke, B. Sc., M. D., 
addressed a letter to the Philadelphia Public Ledger , from 
which the following excerpts are taken: 

“We find so-called physicians in practice today who, without 
a tithe of the patent medicine vendors’ commercial acumen, eclipse 
the latter both in ignorance and braggadocio; and the law gov¬ 
erning the admission of candidates to practice medicine being 
fairly stringent and efficient, the odium of what Dr. Beates so 
justly complains of rests necessarily with the Examining Boards 
of the various States. * * * 

“The publication by the present writer of a recent work on a 
medical subject, sold only to physicians, has brought him into 
contact, through various letters of inquiry from all parts of the 
country, with the identical condition to which Dr. Beates’ re¬ 
marks so justly apply. The letters not only evince ignorance of 
what the merest tyro of medicine should understand, but an 
equal ignorance of the simplest rules of orthography; and this 
even in large cities and centers of professional literary culture. 

“I think it was Maimonides who said that the man who 
permits the loss of a human life, when he possesses the means 
of saving it, must be accounted a murderer; and I would unhes¬ 
itatingly add that the man who undertakes to cure disease, 
conscious of his absolute unfitness for the task, is not only a 

84 


murderer, and of the meanest and most cowardly type, for he 
carries his devilish deceit and pretense into homes already devas¬ 
tated by sorrow and affliction, but a constant menace to society. 

Therefore, I bid Dr. Beates Godspeed in his earnest effort to re¬ 
deem our profession from this deadly reproach. Let the facts be 
given to the press. Make the evil public, however much the pro¬ 
fession as a whole may suffer.” 

The report of the American Medical Association Council 
on Education is to the same effect: 

“That the United States has far too many medical col¬ 
leges, the number exceeding those of all the European powers 
combined, that the average medical knowledge among American 
physicians is far below that of European doctors; that one-half 
of the medical colleges of this country are unfit to teach 
medicine.” 

Now, when it is remembered that appointments to the 
Boards of Examiners are dictated by the associations, 
that in fact these Boards, as a rule, are but the creatures 
and agents of organized medicine, or, as it has been put 
by Dr. McCormack, (see the Journal , March 9th, 1907, 
page 896), that they have “always been, in effect, only 
the executive committee of the medical society/’ 
we can see that the blame for the unfortunate conditions 
is brought directly to the door of organized medicine itself; 
for since the powers of the Examining Boards, in the 
matter of granting licenses is absolute, theirs is the fault 
and they must bear the reproach for turning these incom¬ 
petent doctors out upon a defenseless people to “practice” 
upon them. 

It is no part of our role to defend the medical profes¬ 
sion, and especially against accusers within its own ranks; 
and yet we hope that we may be pardoned for expressing 
the belief that, deplorable as we know conditions in medi¬ 
cine to be, they cannot be quite as bad as they are here 
described. 

When it is recalled that the Association is demanding 
that to its Examining Boards (or the Executive Commit¬ 
tee’s of the Medical Societies, as Dr. McCormack calls them), 
shall be given complete “supervision of all medical colleges 
with authority to pass on the entrance examinations of 

85 


prospective medical students; to issue or to have issued 
entrance certificates to medical students; to inspect the 
medical colleges and to close such (as in their opinion) are 
not sufficiently equipped or are not doing satisfactory work; 
at least, to say what medical colleges shall be recognized,” 
(see Journal American Medical Association , September 14th, 
1907), we say, when we consider the added power they 
are thus seeking to obtain, and bearing in mind former 
evidences of their political shrewdness, we should be par¬ 
doned for the suspicion that they are indulging in exaggera¬ 
tion, with the hope and purpose of frightening the people 
into bestowing upon them control, absolute and complete, 
over all the medical colleges of the country. 

Let us repeat that odium should not attach to the entire 
profession nor even to all members of the Association for 
the high-handed conduct of the ruling clique. There are 
thousands of noble men, in and out of the Association, who 
know that there are gross evils in medicine which ought 
to be remedied, and if their wise counsels should prevail 
the activities of the Association would be directed at these 
evils and not to the up-building of a vast political machine. 
Many such doctors are all the time calling attention to 
these evils with the hope that with exposure, serious and 
earnest efforts in the way of exterminating them will be 
made. Such a man is Dr. Fernand Henrotin, of Chicago, 
a man of high character, great ability and national fame, 
who in an address before the Illinois Medical Association, 
three or four years ago, said: 

“The boodle excrescence on the body medical is a non-malig- 
nant, heterogeneous hypertrophy, which has become a deformity. 
Fellow members, in your heart of hearts, you know the truth lies 
in the assertion that the almighty dollar is the prime object these 
days to a greater degree than we of this epoch or our forefathers 
have known. * * * But why tarry on this unsavory repetition 

of unpleasant facts known to you all? * * * We have become 
commercial to a degree rather inconsistent with the altruistic 
characteristics of our calling. From the man who charges $5,000 
for aspirating a knee joint or for removing a catarrhal appendix 
and crucifer, the two little fellows who are dividing a $100 fee on 
the sly for just as good services on a plough boy, to the one who 
runs a sanitarium on founders’ shares and a salary, we have 

86 


been losing sight of the fact that our profession is a quasi public 
one, attracting an immense amount of attention, and that the 
personality of our membership should not be allowed to de¬ 
teriorate, and that, for the benefit of society, we should seek to 
obtain permanently by living in the proper midline between self- 
assertion and self-restraint.” 

In this same matter of commercialism, Dr. Wm. J. 
Mayo, of Minnesota, especially deplored one particular 
phase of it—and he spoke with the certainty of personal 
knowledge, he being a surgeon of considerable repute, to 
whom doctors all over the country are constantly sending 
patients upon whom they do not feel competent to operate. 
He said: 

“The one crying evil, which, fortunately, is not widespread, 
is the giving of commissions; in other words, the selling of the 
confidence the patient has in his practitioner to some specialist, 
who, in return, will divide the fee for reference of the case. The 
one secretly takes money from the patient without his con¬ 
sent, and the other, in order to complete the bargain, charges 
more than he should. This is equally harmful to the one who 
receives and the one who gives. Some attempts have been made 
to justify it, but the very fact that it is secret shows that both 
parties are ashamed to have it known and is an acknowledgment 
of its moral obliquity.” 

Another failing of the modern physician, if we may 
believe what those who are in a position to know best are 
saying about them, is his tendency to sink the man in the 
scientist and to degenerate into a cold-blooded experimen¬ 
ter, as pointed out by Dr. Heinrich Stern in a remarkable 
address entitled, “Led Astray,” delivered at the Portland 
meeting of the Association in 1905. Said Dr. Stern: 

“In his search for that which he considers science—hypothe¬ 
sis and a series of mostly misinterpreted facts which are utterly 
useless to him in his practical work—the physician of today 
forgets that he is, above all, the confidant and the comforter of 
the patient and his family. He forgets that his purpose should be 
to help the sick and that he must be up and doing. He forgets 
that the sick individual cares little for the bacterium babble and 
his numberless theories, but that he desires to get well and to be 
relieved from aches and pains as speedily as possible. He for¬ 
gets that he is dealing with an individual and speaks of him as his 
case only. In his ardent quest for that putative science he has 
lost the most potent charm of the physician—sympathy, that 
eternal sympathy for the suffering which is often more effective 
in alleviating the patient’s condition than all pain-soothing rem¬ 
edies. He has become coarse-grained and does not seek to hide 


87 


his callousness from the patient; on the contrary, he tries to 
impress the patient with it, for is this not the surest way to 
inspire him with awe and reverential respect for himself, the 
master of the situation who has deeply quaffed of ‘science,’ with 
which he is saturated?” 

That this is not the isolated opinion of one man is shown 
by the similar statement of Dr. Hubbard of the Roosevelt 
Hospital, New York: 

“It might be said that there are fads in medicine as there are 
in less important things in life. The present fashion is the Con¬ 
tinental one; the physician lights his pipe and waits for the 
patient to die; he may obtain an autopsy. His object apparently 
is to verify his diagnosis. If he discovered that he guessed right, 
he is satisfied. The comfort of the patient, the cure of the dis¬ 
ease, if possible, are minor considerations.” 

Even in the matter of competency and intellectual 
honesty it would seem that the profession is anything but 
perfect. In an address before the Ohio Valley Medical 
Association last year, Dr. J. L. Wiggins, said: 

“It is not the man who is striving to reach a higher plane at 
whom we are wont to hurl the javelins of our disapproval, but it 
is the one who, without proper preparation or effort essays to 
achieve the finished product of master minds, notwithstanding 
that what they have done was only after years of patient study, 
work and sacrifice. To our shame be it said, this latter type 
predominates. There exist in many communities men whose 
intellects have not been quickened, nor their consciences cleansed, 
by the advent of Listerism. On the contrary, in spite of this 
antiseptic age, the commercial microbe sown in the agar of an 
exaggerated ego, has multiplied.” 

In an article published in the Journal itself, which, 
however, crept in past the eagle censorship of the editor, 
Dr. Bayard Holmes, makes this serious charge: 

“Modern aggressive surgery has made the hospital into a 
hotel for the temporary care of the vivisected. All that the 
surgeon cares for is a room for his patient to occupy during the 
three or four weeks she is recovering from his incisions. She 
may then go home and get w r ell, or lead a life of invalidism, as 
it happens. To cure his patient and restore her to a life of 
usefulness and happiness is not the modern surgeon’s conception 
of duty. He looks on the invalid as an incumbrance to his hos¬ 
pital, and all the essentials of recovery as unnecessary expense 
and space-consuming impediments.” 

It is illustrative of the arbitrary and biased attitude of 
the editor of the Journal that, in replying apologetically 
to a rather severe rebuke administered to him by a mem- 

88 


ber of the Association for daring to publish such an expo¬ 
sure, he assured his critic “that the statements would 
not have been published had their import been 
realized.” That was one time that the “blue pencil” 
was caught napping. 

Writing upon the same subject in an English journal, 
Dr. James A. Rigby, of Preston, England, puts the case still 
more forcibly and plainly against surgery and the modern 
surgeon: 

“Gradually, progressively, almost imperceptibly, there has of 
recent years arisen in our midst a new tribunal, and one more¬ 
over of great power and far-reaching influence; this tribunal is 
endowed with the power of deciding questions of life and death, 
and as at present constituted there is no appeal whatever from 

its decisions, which are practically immutable and irresistable. 

* * * 

“This terrible power of life and death is thus placed in the 
hands of an inexperienced youth, practically without any safe¬ 
guard whatever; for after the operation is over, provided the 
patient dies, the operator merely requires to fill up a form or 
certificate furnished by the State, in which there is stated the 
disease for which the operation has been performed, the nature 
of the operation, more or less explicitly expressed, with the fatal 
result. There is an end of the matter. 

“ * * * There has arisen a class of surgeons, mostly 

young, often inexperienced in other safer and more rational 
methods of treatment, and above all, quite callous and indifferent 
to the true welfare of their patients, whom they look upon merely 
in the light of subjects to be experimented and operated upon. 
These surgeons, regardless of age or any other deterring con¬ 
siderations, have no hesitation in embittering the last moments 
of their patients, by submitting them to what are practically 
hopeless operations, often under the specious plea of giving them 
a chance; thus, what should be a peaceful deathbed scene be¬ 
comes converted into a seance of operating surgeons, nurses 
et hoc genus omne, to whom the suffering patient is merely an 
interesting case. His obituary notice is another record in the 
case book of the operating surgeon, who, rightly from his point of 
view, has, by constant repetition of such scenes, quite obliterated 
the acute sense of humanity he originally possessed.” 

It is true that Dr. Rigby was referring specifically to 
conditions in his own country, but his description will 
apply with equal fitness to the surgical situation in the 
United States, as we think the reader will agree after he 
has completed the reading of this pamphlet. It may not 
be out of the way to call attention to the fact that the British 


89 


Medical Journal (which bears the same relation to or¬ 
ganized medicine in Great Britain that the Journal of the 
American Medical Association does in the United States), 
while not denying the facts contained in the paper, most 
severely censured Dr. Rigby for giving publication to the 
same; thus showing the identical desire for concealment of 
these unfavorable conditions as is indicated in the apology 
of the Journal of the American Medical Association above 
quoted. 

Of the public relations to these conditions in the pro¬ 
fession, Dr. Waite, in an article upon “The Surgical Situa¬ 
tion” in the Medical Record, shrewdly says: 

“The time has come when a reform movement is bound to 
be inaugurated. If it does not come from within it will come 
from without. If we do not reform ourselves we will be re¬ 
formed, nolens Volens . The laity are not all fools and the 
surgical situation is no longer a professional secret. Putting 
aside all question of ethics, of our duty as a profession toward 
a confiding laity, the law of self-preservation forces us to take 
up this question in earnest. That portion of the laity which 
has not already gone over to Christian Science, Osteopathy and 
Psychotherapy is casting a critical eye upon the medical pro¬ 
fession, and if I mistake not the signs of the times will require 
a speedy accounting. Let us, therefore, bravely face the situa¬ 
tion; let us probe the ugly wound to its very depths; let us 
fearlessly apply the cautery while it yet remains in our own 
hands, and while we can make a thorough aseptic operation.’* 

All these warnings and admonitions would con¬ 
stitute an exceedingly hopeful sign if there were strong evi¬ 
dences that the ruling clique had taken notice of them and 
were earnestly trying to remove the ugly excrescences on the 
body medical. But in the absence of any such movement, and 
in the face of an arrogant and complacent proposition on their 
part to reform and regulate the affairs of every body else 
with whom they have any dealings, these internal evidences 
of decided imperfection savor very unpleasantly of snobbery 
and hypocrisy. 

There is another type of short-coming upon which the 
public light is occasionally turned—quite by accident as a 
rule, because doctors’ mistakes and crimes are usually 
buried with their victims and there is little chance of getting 

90 


an Association physician to testify against a fellow mem¬ 
ber, unless he happens to have a personal grudge to pay—- 
and when they are so exposed they shed a flood of light 
upon the much vaunted infallibility of the medical man. 
We refer to the commission of actual blunders in surgical 
work. 

Not infrequently, since the inauguration of abdominal 
surgery, cases of malpractice have been brought against 
surgeons because in sewing up a wound they have left 
sponges and other articles in the abdominal cavity, endan¬ 
gering the patient’s life and necessitating a second opera¬ 
tion. It remained, however, for the defendant in a recent 
case of this kind in a western state to establish a defense 
that ingenuously gave away the entire situation. He 
admitted the offense, but pleaded that he “used 
ordinary skill”—in other words that the leaving of 
articles in the abdominal cavity was such an ordi¬ 
nary occurrence that it came within the allowance 
of the law which limits the obligation of the 
surgeon to the exercise of ordinary skill. 

This remarkable defense was set up by one of those 
■physicians’ defense companies to which we have made 
reference, and upon the strength of it we wrote to a well- 
known collaborator of medical literature who made the 
research, and have his reply that he “found several hun¬ 
dred cases recorded in medical journals, and it was not 
confined to the uneducated or careless operators, but has 
happened to the best cultured and leading surgeons of 
both hemispheres. Further, the articles left in the abdo¬ 
men are not limited to sponges—forceps, spectacles, eye¬ 
glasses, wedding rings, towels, etc., have been left. In 
one case the abdomen was opened four months after the 
operation and a towel was found, dry and nicely folded, 
just as it came from the laundry.” 

And this, as it appears, is regarded as ordinary skill 
by these medical autocrats who are seeking a State Estab¬ 
lishment of Medicine, the jurisdiction of which shall 

91 


extend to the most private details of our daily lives, with 
themselves to dispense and administer it! 

Speaking on the subject of sewing up foreign substances 
in the abdominal cavity Dr. H. S. Crossen, in an address 
before the St. Louis Medical Society, says: 

“To one not familiar with the subject it seems past belief 
that we would carry into the abdominal cavity any object, the 
removal of which is not provided for with absolute certainty. 
And yet, that such is the case is abundantly proven by the long 
list of cases in which sponges, forceps and other sundry articles 
have been removed from the abdomen during convalescence or at 
the post-mortem table. Many cases have been reported, and there 
are many more cases that have not been reported, since, for 
obvious reasons, the accident is not given publicity, unless there 
is a special reason for doing so. In any large body of surgeons, 
a little experience meeting in which testimonials are freely given, 
will show a number of cases in which this serious accident has 
occurred.” 

Again, there is an article in the Journal of the Ameri¬ 
can Medical Association , July 20th, 1907, by Dr. Archibald 
MacLaren. After giving a number of recorded instances 
and reciting a few cases gleaned from his own personal 
experiences, he says: 

“Before Leaving this subject I would like to report part of a 
conversation which I had recently with Dr. Maurice Richardson, 
in which he said that he had on several occasions operated op 
the patients of other surgeons and had removed forgotten foreign 
bodies, and that, to the best of his knowledge, these people were 
never told what had been the cause of the local inflammation 
or abscess which had needed further surgical care. We know 
that this excellent rule, is not always followed by surgeons of 
equal standing, as it should be whenever possible." 

This must be another instance in which the scrutiniz¬ 
ing gaze of the Journal's editor was momentarily turned 
away or else when it had become weary with its constant 
and censorious watching, for it is hard to imagine that he 
would willingly have allowed a paper containing such dam¬ 
aging admissions to appear in his publication, unless, per¬ 
haps, it was with the purpose of impressing upon his readers 
that “the excellent rule” of never telling the patient what 
was the cause of the local inflammation or abscess that 
necessitated the second surgical operation, “is not always 
followed as it should be, whenever possible.” 

92 


Nor is surgery the only field where such blunders are 
made. Not so many years ago ten prisoners at the Bibilio 
Prison, Manila, died of bubonic plague because the prison 
doctor inoculated them with bubonic cultures instead of 
cholera serum. In justice to the prison doctor it should 
be said that the error was due to a careless act of “a com¬ 
mission of eminent doctors” visiting the prison, who 
(innocently, of course) put the culture tubes into the rack 
where the cholera serum tubes belonged. 

The shortcomings of the medical profession are not even 
confined to ignorance and carelessness. Even in the mat¬ 
ter of morals their skirts are not so clean that their leaders 
can afford to indulge in the task of washing other people’s 
linen, at least in public. Among the numerous crimes and 
misdemeanors which these leaders have not hesitated to 
lay at the door of the druggist is the heinous one of retail¬ 
ing drugs and giving advice for the procuring of criminal 
abortion. Yet even in this matter they can scarcely be 
said to come into court with clean hands. 

Dr. John M. Grant, a most excellent physician, and a 
man of the highest character, who could not possibly have 
had any other motive than the desire to remove from his 
profession an odium which attaches to it, in a paper read 
before the St. Louis Medical Society, declared that over 
thirty-five per cent of pregnant women have abortions per¬ 
formed upon them—some observers make the percentage 
still higher. As to the responsibility for the crimes, Dr. 
Grant says: 

“There are two classes of people who are guilty of producing 
these abortions. One class consists of the notorious midwives 
and doctors who for love of filthy lucre murder these unborn 
babes. These persons are so debased and so lost to all that is 
true and noble in life, that they are held in utter contempt and 
abhorrence by every right-thinking man. The other class con¬ 
sists of certain members of the medical profession who are gen¬ 
erally considered to be men of repute. It is a disgrace to our 
profession that any member of it should have so conducted him¬ 
self as to justify the suspicion that he was an abortionist. Yet, 
if common report be true, certain men are guilty.” 


93 


The Michigan State Board of Health reports substanti¬ 
ally the same condition of affairs in that State, putting 
the proportion at thirty-four per cent. 

Dr. Henry G. W. Reinhart, Coroner’s Physician for 
Cook Chunty, Illinois, in 1905, was quoted in the Chicago 
Daily News , of December 7tli of that year, as saying: 

“Criminal operations are performed in every city in every 
State. They are performed by doctors holding certificates to 
practice; certificates that can be revoked. The crime can be 
punished in most States, if not in all, by imprisonment; the pro¬ 
fession can be purged of malpractitioners of the criminal kind, 
and the purging can be done by the profession, as a matter of 
house-cleaning. But it isn’t done, and it won’t be done as long 
as so-called ‘reputable physicians’ (who haven’t been ex¬ 
posed by their professional brethren) will do a ‘dirty job’ for 
$100, and will sign a fraudulent death certificate. It is a busi¬ 
ness that pays, pays big, and the political doctor never yet was 
known to have interfered with any phase of professional 
activity that pays big fees!” 

Dr. Rudolph Holmes, who made an investigation of 
the subject, thus stated, before the Chicago Medical Society: 

“I have come to the conclusion that the public does not want, 
the profession does not want, the women in particular do not 
want, any aggressive campaign against the crime of abortion. 
I have secured evidence. I have asked different physicians, who 
either had direct knowledge of crime or who could testify to the 
prisoner’s general bad reputation, to come and testify, and they 
promised to come, but when the time for trial is at hand no 
one appears. On the other hand, reputable members of the 
Chicago Medical Society regularly appear in court to support the 
testimony of some notorious abortionist. * * * In a certain 

county society complaints were lodged with the censors 
concerning three physicians known by reputation and deed 
to be professional abortionists and the censors refused to take 
action.” 

Dr. Walter B. Dorsett, in an address before the Asso¬ 
ciation in 1908, said: 

“Self-induced abortion, or abortion produced by a fashionable 
or fad doctor, is, as we know, a fruitful cause of horrible pus 
cases in which we are now and then called to operate. This fad 
doctor is one with a lucrative practice, and is often ‘the lion at 
social functions.’ He it is who empties the uterus in cases of 
emesis gravidarum without first racking his precious brain in try¬ 
ing all recognized remedies and methods to check the vomiting. 
He it is who finds so many cases of contracted pelvis where it is 
utterly impossible to do anything but an early abortion to save 
the woman’s life. He it is who finds so many cases of retention 


94 


of menses, that require dilation and curetment. He it is who 
finds the urine ‘loaded with albumin,’ necessitating an immediate 
emptying of the uterus to prevent death from Bright’s disease. 
Such men and women prostitute the profession of medicine and 
should be exposed.” 

Dr. Montgomery Russell in the Kansas City Medical 
Record , points out that: 

The law leaves it entirely with the judgment of the medi¬ 
cal profession to determine when it is necessary and warrant¬ 
able to procure abortion. There is no immorality in producing 
abortion therapeutically if it gives a chance of saving the life of 
the mother, when, if it were not done, it would be almost certain 
that both mother and child would perish.” 

Here one sees the wide latitude of opportunity 
and excuse and, hence, the strong temptation which 
the law puts into the hands of the medical man in 
this matter, such as is experienced by no other 
class of men or women, with whom abortion is 
always a crime. We reiterate, doctors are no better or 
worse than other men; therefore it is not surprising, but 
quite natural, that with this opportunity and ready justifi- 
•cation, the crime of abortion should so generally prevail. 

It must not be supposed that these charges of abortion 
lie against physicians as a class. Happily, for the honor of 
humanity and the profession, such physicians are compara¬ 
tively few and far between. But they exist among the 
doctors, certainly to as great an extent as among the drug¬ 
gists, if not greater, and considerations of decency at least 
should forbid any man from twitting another with having 
a homicide in his family who himself numbers a murderer 
among his own. 

Organized medicine—or rather the clique of politicians 
who pretend to represent organized medicine—has lost no 
opportunity of attacking the drug trade. Like the ancient 
church dignitaries in the issuance of their anathemas, they 
have cursed it in all and every of its functions. And it is 
a noteworthy fact that in every one of the counts in their 
rather voluminous bill of complaints against it, they are 
themselves conspicuously wanting in that prime principle of 


95 



equity that requires a complainant to come into court with 
clean hands. 

Their walking delegate, Dr. McCormack, of Kentucky, 
as we have already recorded, has been going up and down 
the country endeavoring to make it appear that the drug¬ 
gist is responsible for the growth of alcohol and drug addic¬ 
tions. 

In October, 1899, Dr. T. D. Crothers, of Hartford, 
Conn., read a paper on “Morphinism Among Physicians” 
before the New York Medical Association. As a noted 
authority on morphinism, Dr. Crothers’ statements are 
entitled to serious consideration, lie reported that he had 
secured the history of 3,244 physicians, residing in the 
eastern, middle west, and some cities in the west, of whom 
twenty-one per cent were found to be using spirits or opium 
persistently. Ten per cent, outside of this number, were 
using opium or other drugs secretly. He also reported 
that from the personal observation of a number of city 
physicians who have large acquaintance with medical men, 
from six to ten per cent were found to be either secret or 
open drug and morphine habitues. The following para¬ 
graph is quoted verbatim: 

“These figures appear to he approximately correct, and 
show that from six to ten per cent in this country are opium 
inebriates. This is considered a conservative statement, con¬ 
sidering the fact that drug takers, and physicians in particular, 
are secretive and conceal their use of drugs, especially when it 
implies weakness and reflects on their social standing. * * * 

“I can not stop without calling attention to the fact that mor¬ 
phinism is increasing among physicians. The reports from 
private asylums and public hospitals show that within five years 
medical men form a considerable part of their inmates. Special¬ 
ists of nerve diseases sustain the same fact. The young and 
middle-aged men are the most common victims. Often they are 
from that class of delusional therapeutists who want to prove 
everything by personal experience, or who have exalted concep¬ 
tions of the power of drugs, and believe that researches in that 
direction will open the road to a physical millennium.” 

At a meeting of the Association, in discussing a paper 
on this subject by Dr. A. J. Pressey, of Cleveland, Dr. 
Crothers declared that: 


96 


“The subject of morphinism has a personal interest for every 
physician, because it is one of the most frequent addictions among 
active workers in the profession. From some studies made five 
years ago, and which have since been fully confirmed, I am con¬ 
duced that at least fifteen to twenty per cent of the physicians 
in active practice are victims of m’orphine and spirit taking.” 

This estimate was considered too large by some mem¬ 
bers present, but Dr. Crothers in replying to them said 
that the facts may be startling, but the evidence on which 
they are based are incontrovertible. The question irresis¬ 
tibly suggests itself as to what kind of a standing in equity 
such a state of affairs gives to the charge of the medical 
clique that the drug trade is responsible for the drug habit. 
But this is not all; and again we rest our case on the testi¬ 
mony of the medical profession itself. 

Another medical writer, Dr. C. E. Patterson, in the 
Medical Summary , asserts the same truth, and further 
places upon the doctor the blame of starting many a case 
of drug addiction. He says: 

“I am sorry to say that of any one class of men who are 
addicted to drugs and liquor, the medical profession takes the 

lead. And I arn sorry to say, further, that the physician of 
today is altogether too ready to pull out that little gun of his 
and shoot every patient that has a pain, thus endangering the 
formation of a drug habit.” 

To the same effect is Dr. Oscar L. Peak, of Springfield, 
Mo., in the Missouri Journal of State Medicine: 

‘‘There is no doubt that thousands of persons have been 
started in the downward course of the drunkard by the direct 
act, advice or sanction (and I am ashamed to say too often by 
the example) of their family physician.” 

The fact of the matter is that the testimony of the heads 
of sanitaria for drug victims is practically unanimous that 
in almost all cases the habit began with a doctor’s prescrip- ‘ 
tion, and we quote the words of but one of these directors 
as being substantially the burden of them all: 

“In looking over my case reports covering the last eight 
years, I find that the most common cause of the morphine habit 
is the medical prescription given for the relief of bodily pain. 
As long as the patient is ignorant of what he is taking the 
danger is not so great, but when the drug is given to him to use 


97 



as he sees fit, a case of morphine addiction is almost sure to 
result. A physician who places a hypodermic syringe in the 
hands of a patient for use in chronic painful trouble should cer¬ 
tainly be severely criticised, unless that trouble is hopelessly in¬ 
curable.” 

Dr. L. F. Kebler, Chief, Division of Drugs in the Bureau 
of Chemistry, of the United States Department of Agri¬ 
culture, in a recent paper on the “dope” question, said: 

“With the passage of laws of the above character (i. e., for 
the suppression of the drug habit), local sales of these dangerous 
agents are usually materially reduced. The druggists as a class 
worked for the passage of such laws and welcome and assist in 
their enforcement. * * * There are still, however, consider¬ 

able amounts of both cocaine and morphine illicitly sold, used 
and consumed within jurisdictions possessing such laws. * * * 

‘The various restrictive laws do not as a rule restrict the 
doctor in prescribing these drugs in such a manner as to make 
conviction easy, except in flagrant cases, and it is common knowl¬ 
edge that there are some so-called doctors who make a practice 
of writing prescriptions for very small fees for these life-wreck¬ 
ing drugs.” 

Now, we submit that if the clique was unselfishly de¬ 
sirous of doing a real public service, if it had even the 
ultimate good of the science of medicine at heart, it would 
first effectively reform its own profession before starting 
out to reform the drug trade, even admitting that this trade 
is as guilty as it is charged with being. In any event, 
in the light of these disclosures, the clique would not bra¬ 
zenly demand that to its hands or those of the profes¬ 
sion in general, shall be entrusted the complete control 
of the habit-forming drugs, with the unregulated power 
and authority for their prescription and administration. 

One of the most insistent grounds upon which the cus¬ 
todians of medical ethics have attacked the proprietary 
* remedy is that of its secret formula. With large assurance 
they demand that the manufacturer place upon his label 
always the constituents and proportions of his preparation. 
This, of course, also, in the interests of the public health and 
safety! It is doubtless in the same interests that the physi¬ 
cian hedges his own prescription around with every device 
of language and symbolism to prevent the patient from 


reading its contents, and becomes highly offended if his 
patient should be impudent enough to ask what he is 
giving him. The sentiment of the physician on this point 
is aptly and ingenuously expressed in an article by Dr. 
A. C. Ragsdale, read before the Southern Illinois Tri-County 
Medical Society: 

“I adopted a plan when I began practice which I think should 
be adopted generally, that of never allowing a patient to know 
what he is taking. There are thousands of reasons why the 
patient should not know what he is taking. It is none of his 
business. He pays you for exercising your knowledge in his 
behalf and does not employ you to give him a course of training 
in medicine. If you have to write a prescription, put it in 
Latin or some form that will not be understood by the patient 
or his friends. How many patients have become drug fiends by 
knowing what was prescribed for them? How many prescrip¬ 
tions have been refilled without the physician’s knowledge or 
consent? I might go on and enumerate dozens of causes, and 
the next day some commercial rat would call on you and say, 
‘How do you do, Doc? How’s practice. Say, Doc, I’ve got a sure 
thing for so and so, and I’ll just leave you a sample, and I’d like 
to send you a pound or two in your next order.’ ” 

Note how subtly the consideration for the patient’s 
possible habit-forming is sandwiched in among the real 
arguments, as a sop to the ethical and paternal proprieties 
of the case. 

So bitter does the self-constituted guardian of the public 
and the profession become that he does not hesitate to 
attack the personal character of medicine manufacturers 
as a class. Dr. Phillip Mills Jones (who, by the way, once 
a militant antagonist of the American Medical Association, 
has lately been thrown the sop of a place on the Board of 
Trustees and been hypnotized into innocuousness), has this 
to say about this subject: 

Don’t believe anything that any manufacturer tells you, 

unless the Council (who of course are beyond suspicion) tells 
you the manufacturer is telling the truth. There is not one of 
them that has not, deliberately or inadvertently, lied to our 
profession, and misstated either the composition of some of 
his wares or their active value.” 

That would be a terrible accusation if it were true. 
But it will be hard to make the public believe that all 
medicine manufacturers are dishonest, and, unfortunately, 


99 


for its trustworthiness, the testimony of Dr. Wiley, who 
must at least be accredited with truthfulness equal to that 
of the Council (and certainly it cannot be said that he is 
prejudiced in favor of the manufacturers), is directly op¬ 
posed to Dr. Jones’ wild assertion. Dr. Wiley, is reported 
in the Rochester Times as saying: 

“I estimate that fully ninety per cent of manufacturers and 
dealers in drugs and foods in this country are today obeying the 
law to the best of their ability, an estimate based on careful 
inquiry and upon chemical analysis of sampled products.” 

The embarrassing feature about Dr. Wiley’s statement 
is that it places Dr. Jones and those who have made similar 
misstatements, in the very Ananias Club to which they 
would have relegated the manufacturers. 


100 


4 \ 

< • r 


CHAPTER XII 


The Medical Trust and the Drug Trade. 


With a big flourish of their own trumpets, and a waving 
of their banners bearing the high-sounding inscriptions of 
“Altruism,” “Paternalism,” “Public Safety,” and the like, 
the medical clique, making a play for political recognition, 
go before the public in support of the Pure Food and Drug 
laws to protect the citizen from impure foods and drugs. 
From that point of view, a truly excellent and public- 
spirited proceeding! But can any man with a spark 
of logic in his make-up offer any reason—we will 
not say a good, but simply a plausible reason—why, 
from the same point of view, the public weal 
requires that drugs reaching them by the hands of 
druggists who presumably know something about 
drugs, and whose reputations are at stake in hand¬ 
ling pure products, should be guaranteed or safe¬ 
guarded by the State, while those which reach them 
through the practicing physician, who knows next 
to nothing about drugs, and to whom an impure 
article can never be traced if he does dispense it, 
calls for no such protection? 

We give it up. Under the present propensity of the 
doctor to dispense his own medicines, it is estimated that 
at least two-thirds of the drugs consumed by the public 
reach it through the hands of the physician. Which 
presents the farcical anomaly of a pure drug law, 
which does not apply to two-thirds of the drugs 


101 




that are distributed and consumed; and those two- 
thirds, as we have shown, moving through the 
very channels where there are no natural or 
economic safeguards to regulate them. Even physi¬ 
cians’ prescriptions, which were not specifically exempted 
by the National law, were arbitrarily exempted by Dr. Wiley, 
who appears thus to have wrested the law to his authority 
for the express purpose of favoring his brother physicians. 

Will someone rise to explain why the drug trade should 
be hedged about with all sorts of restrictions, and the medi¬ 
cal profession be as gods, choosing good and evil? Can one 
class be a gang of thieves and the other composed only of 
infallible saints? 

The fact is, it is not really so much a matter of class 
honesty as it is of temptation and opportunity to do wrong 
and of liability to err. Allowing that the physician, for 
his own interest, is concerned in curing his patient and 
thus in using pure drugs, the fact remains that he is almost 
entirely without pharmaceutical knowledge and therefore 
unable to judge of the purity of his drugs, and hence he is 
an easy victim to the dishonest manufacturer. The phar¬ 
macist is obliged to take a two to four years’ course in 
pharmacy and to pass a rigid examination in it before he is 
permitted to dispense; but the medical man does not study 
pharmacy at all. In an address before the Ohio State Phar¬ 
maceutical Association last July, Prof. J. H. Beal, formerly 
Dean of Scio College of Pharmacy and a Drug Inspector for 
the State of Ohio, a man of the highest character and ability, 
stated that ‘‘by enquiry it had been learned that some 
manufacturers actually carry two grades of certain phar¬ 
maceuticals, one a high priced brand conforming to legal 
standards and offered only to druggists, and another much 
cheaper brand made exclusively for the physicians’ use” 
an eloquent commentary upon the point we are here arguing. 

Prof. Beal further states that while engaged in the work 
of drug inspection he, from time to time, visited the offices 
of dispensing physicians with the view of ascertaining the 

102 




quality of the drugs they carry in stock. The results of 
this partial examination, he says, were surprising. “The 
elixirs, syrups, fluid extracts and similar pharmaceuticals 
were of the cheapest and poorest kind, and, if dispensed 
by druggists, would have subjected them to prosecution.” 
Continuing, Prof. Beal says: “One of the most frequently 
occurring faults is deficiency in alcohol or in some other 
expensive ingredient. In some instances elixirs have been 
found so low in alcohol as to be in a state of fermentation. 
* * * Compressed tablets and similar ready-made pre¬ 
scriptions occupy a prominent position in many offices, 
some of them embracing combinations provocative of mer¬ 
riment to one familiar with the possibilities of the tablet 
form of medication. Judging from the hardness, insolubility, 
and other physical properties of certain samples examined, 
they should be practically as efficacious medicinally as 
quartz pebbles of equal size and shapes. * * * In some 
• offices there are to be found tablet combinations of codeine 
with phenacetine and other drugs, which were purchased 
for less than the quoted wholesale price of codeine alone; 
quinine pills for less than the cost of quinine alone, etc. 
Comment on such medicaments seems unnecessary.” 

It might be urged that the same law that guarantees 
the quality of the drugs handled by the pharmacists acts 
equally as a safeguard to those dispensed by the physicians. 
But this is only partly true, for according to the National 
law and the State laws modeled after it, provision is ex¬ 
pressly made for deviations from the established standards, 
provided the “standard of strength, quality or purity be 
plainly stated on the bottle, box or container thereof.” 
And besides, as we have seen, physicians’ prescriptions are 
exempted entirely from legal regulation. And so, even if 
the drugs bought by the physician conform strictly to legal 
requirements at the time of their purchase, there is nothing 
to prevent him from diluting or otherwise decreasing their 
strength, or even from adulterating them, if he be so in¬ 
clined, before they are actually dispensed. Besides, most 

103 


drugs deteriorate with age,' and there are no inspectors 
going around to investigate the doctor’s stock of medicine. 

It has even been tlireatened by Dr. Phillip Mills Jones, 
. of the California State Medical Journal, that unless the 
drug stores yield to the Association’s demand to give up 
handling proprietary medicines, the Association will estab¬ 
lish a chain of drug stores owned and controlled by the 
medical profession, in which the prescriptions of its mem¬ 
bers will be filled. Inasmuch as the prescription business 
does not exceed ten per cent of the trade of the average 
drug store, the demand to relinquish the sale of proprietary 
preparations is equivalent to a demand to give up one of 
the druggist’s chief means of livelihood and with no pre¬ 
tense of offering anything to compensate him for that which 
he is called upon to relinquish. 

To be sure, we have no great faith in the success of such 
a co-operative scheme, and even if it should temporarily 
succeed, it would inevitably breed internal dissensions 
among the physicians; yet it is significant of the real animus 
of organized medicine against the drug trade, and the 
lengths to which it will carry its hostility to anything which 
interferes with its pocket book. 

Failing to make any very serious impression on the 
druggists of the country by these threats and bulldozings, the 
crafty clique then appear to have reversed their tactics, and 
we now find them throwing out the deceptive bait embodied 
in what is known as the “U. S. P. and N. F. Propaganda.” 
They are aware that this appeals to the professional ambi¬ 
tion of the true pharmacist, and evidently imagine that 
they have made a master stroke. But we think they will 
find that the druggists are not to be “tenderly led by the 
nose as asses are.”’ The scheme has indeed a most seduc¬ 
tive appearance, but we believe it will turn out to be a 
delusion and a snare, so far as the interests of the pharma¬ 
cists are concerned. Even if the bosses succeed in getting 
physicians generally to prescribe U. S. P. and N. F. prep¬ 
arations, it can never benefit the druggists to any great 

104 


extent, for the reason that the large pharmaceutical houses, 
with their hundreds of representatives constantly calling 
on the doctors, will educate the physicians into prescribing 
their several brands, with the result that the druggists, 
if they fill prescriptions exactly as they are written, will 
be compelled to carry all these various makes in stock. 

In proportion as pharmacists resist this imposition and 
refuse to stock the goods of some particular house, when 
they have the identical articles of some other manufac¬ 
turer’s make on their shelves, it is as clear as noon-day that 
that manufacturer is not going to retire whipped from the 
field, but that in self-defense he will endeavor to persuade 
the doctor to buy his pharmaceuticals direct; and to the 
extent that this is done, the propaganda for U. S. P. and 
N. F. preparations will be converted into a propaganda for 
self-dispensing by physicians. And so, to view the matter 
from whatever direction, it would seem that the scheme is 
more in the interests of the dispensing doctors and the 
large pharmaceutical manufacturers than of the pharma¬ 
cists. It has indeed been frequently charged that the 
relation of some of these large houses and certain members 
of the ruling clique are suspiciously intimate, and what if 
it should turn out that this U. S. P. and N. F. propaganda, 
beautiful as it seems in theory, is really being secretly worked 
in the interests of the big manufacturers? 

But even if that be not the case, and we do not make 
the charge, there is great danger, provided the scheme meets 
with no setback, that the Medical Trust will eventually 
make these preparations themselves and will dispense them 
through the chain of pharmacies which, it has been 
threatened, will be established. And thus it appears that 
the druggists, to the extent of their co-operation in the se¬ 
ductive measure, may be the instruments of their own 
undoing. 

It cannot, therefore, be too strongly impressed upon the 
druggists that they cannot reasonably hope for any benefit 
from this or any other scheme which the medico-politicians 

105 


may propose. These schemers do not represent and can¬ 
not control the members of their own Association, to say 
nothing of dictating to the entire medical profession. And 
their contracts are worthless, because they cannot “deliver 
the goods.” They occupy a position not unlike that of 
usurpers in a government, with this difference—they have 
no power to compel obedience to their decrees. And hence, 
no faith can be placed in any promise they may make 
which pretends to bind the profession as a whole, or any 
great portion of the same. And as they represent, speak 
and act for themselves only, druggists should not hold the 
profession as a body responsible for their conduct. With 
physicians as a class, the closest relations should be estab¬ 
lished, and with them, druggists should work in complete 
harmony, always bearing in mind that the one profession 
is but the complement of the other, and that the man who 
would seek to sow dissensions between them is an enemy 
to both. 


106 


CHAPTER XIII 


Ignorance of Prescription-writing Respon¬ 
sible for the Existence of 
Proprietaries. 


With egregious inconsistency the medical politicians seek 
to have prescriptions containing morphine and cocaine ex¬ 
empted from the law requiring such drugs to be labeled, 
yet wish to compel the observance of the law when these 
same prescriptions are refilled. If it is for the public wel¬ 
fare always to know when it is taking morphine and cocaine, 
then it is just as necessary in one case as in the other. Noth¬ 
ing could more plainly demonstrate the mercenary motive 
of the whole business—the purpose being, as in the case of 
the proprietaries, to compel the public to come to the 
doctor for a prescription. 

But, perhaps, the most conspicuous and amusing mani¬ 
festation of the inconsistency and hypocrisy of these at¬ 
tacks by the medical oligarchy on at least one branch of 
the drug trade is seen in the contradictory attitude which 
the former occupy in relation to proprietary preparations. 
The two-fold position taken by them in their condemna¬ 
tion of proprietaries is, first, that the proprietaries are in 
themselves, in the main, mischievous things in the practice 
of medicine, in that their formulae are often secret; they 
are not always what they claim to be; they are usually 
inferior to the official drugs; they breed in the physician the 
lazy habit of prescribing what is convenient rather than 
what is ideal, etc., and second, that they are indirectly 
mischievous because they tend to take medication out of 

107 





the hands of the physician, where it inherently belongs, 
and place it in the hands of the laity. Yet in their discus¬ 
sions of the subject among themselves they gravely and in¬ 
genuously admit as one of the prime causes of the use of 
proprietaries a factor which, if they but had the wit to see it, 
annuls both of their star arguments against the proprie¬ 
tary and virtually puts them out of court. 

Dr. Horatio C. Wood, in an address on this subject before 
the Academy of Medicine of Columbus, Ohio, gave voice to 
this admission in the following words: 

“No condition exists without cause and there must be some 
strong reason for so general a use of these preparations. It is 
incredible that mere convenience in prescribing can explain such 
a widespread popularity without some other influence at work. 
One great reason for the flourishing of this business is to be 
laid at the door of the profession directly, that is the igno¬ 
rance of the action of drugs and of methods of combining them. 
The subject of therapeutics is all too imperfectly taught in our 
medical schools, while that of prescription writing is almost com¬ 
pletely ignored. If you will look over the examinations of various 
State Boards you will find lower marks in prescription writing 
than in any other subject.” 

Dr. M. Howard Fussell, writing in the Journal of the 
American Medical Association , and speaking of the shot¬ 
gun prescription, said: 

“The greatest reasons for this defect in our practice, it 
seems to me, are ignorance, indolence and cupidity on the part 
of the physician, manufacturing chemist and pharmacists, due to 
faulty training or to the deliberate putting aside of facts well 
known at graduation, because it is much easier to follow than to 
originate; cupidity due to the desire for unusual financial re¬ 
turns, which can seldom come from scientific practice of medi¬ 
cine and pharmacy.” 

Dr. 0. T. Osborne, of Yale, in an article in the Journal 
of the Art of Therapeutics , declares: 

“It is not because each and every practitioner desires to put 
gain into some pharmaceutical firm’s pocket, it is not because 
each druggist wishes to load his shelves with pharmaceutical 
and patented preparations, that these firms and their preparations 
are constantly multiplying, but because not enough time is 
spent in the study of therapeutics in the undergraduate and 
post-graduate medical schools.” 

Writing on the subject of proprietaries and the reasons 
for their extended use, the St. Paul Medical Journal says: 

108 


‘ There are many physicians, particularly among recent 
graduates of some of our best medical schools, who cannot 
write prescriptions at all. The Board of Medical Examiners have 
observed many candidates who passed excellent examinations in 
other branches, display hopeless ignorance in their answers 
concerning materia medica, and particularly, prescription writ¬ 
ing.” 


The Editor of the California State Medical Journal , 
September, 1905, says: 

“That a large number of physicians have never seen the 
Pharmacopoeia, have never used it, never were taught anything 

about it. * * * It is now time, gentlemen of the medical pro¬ 

fession, that we should study a little of the Pharmacopoeia and 
teach ourselves a little of what we should know.” 

Dr. Alfred Stengel, before the Philadelphia Medical 
Society, December 27th, 1905, said: 

“The cause of the extraordinary use of proprietaries is 
largely due to the delinquence of the medical profession.” 

Dr. Frank G. Wheatly, says: 

“If better results are obtained from using them (i. e., pro¬ 
prietaries), it is because the average physician does not know 
enough about medicine to write a prescription. And, he con¬ 
tinues, x‘medical schools should produce graduates who can 
write prescriptions.’ ” 

Dr. Frank Billings, of Chicago, one of the Chief Priests 
in the Temple of organized medicine, in an address before 
the Association (see Journal of the American Medical As¬ 
sociation, Vol. XLV., No. 23), said: 

“What is the cause of the nostrum evil? There are several. 
First of which, pharmacology and therapeutics are neglected, 
relatively, in our medical schools. Anatomy, physiology, 
pathology, diagnosis, etc., are emphasized, and, too often, the 
usefulness and limitations of drugs are neglected. If the 
student were fully taught the physiologic action of drugs, the 
art of prescribing, etc., * * * he would not have to depend 
on proprietary medicines.” 

All of these gentlemen assert that the cause for the 
existence of proprietaries lies in the ignorance and incompe¬ 
tence of the doctors themselves. Under such circum¬ 
stances, one would naturally think that, knowing the cause 
they would seek to remove it, and in this way eradicate the 
supposed evil which flows therefrom. But we find no evi- 

109 


dence of any considerable movement towards their own 
improvement. They seek rather to destroy a class of 
remedies, which, by their own confessions of inability to 
write prescriptions, it would seem, now constitute a 
desideratum in medical practice. 

It would naturally be supposed, by one who had not 
read the history of the race or studied human nature, that 
men possessing so many weaknesses and infirmities them¬ 
selves would be generous and tolerant to the shortcomings 
of their fellow-men, and especially when their own calling is 
to relieve human suffering and to save human lives. But 
all history shows that intolerance has found its most cruel 
development in professions like that of medicine, in which 
there is so little of real, absolute and definite knowledge; 
and so we should not be surprised at these manifestations 
of bigotry and fanaticism on the part of organized medi¬ 
cine, when from their own admissions, we realize the crud¬ 
ity of their knowledge, the extent of their ignorance and 
the fatal boundary which limits their own information. 

It would occur to the man in the street that the drug 
trade need not offer any further argument against the organi¬ 
zation physicians’ invasion of its province than this which 
they have themselves furnished. An ordinary sense of 
shame, to say nothing of a lurking sense of humor, one 
would think, would stop the mouths of these reformers of 
pharmacy, at least until they had reformed their own 
ranks to a point where they were not fain to confess that as 
a class they knew nothing about pharmacy. Bu f the man 
in the street unfortunately does not know the temper and 
character of the high priests of ethical medicine—as per¬ 
haps he does.not understand just what they have at stake. 

We do not hold a brief for proprietaries. We are not 
now arguing for or against them. We look upon the pro¬ 
prietary question simply as a detail. But we are intensely 
concerned in the spirit which would legislate out of existence 
a thing which has at least as good a standing in court as 
that which tries to put it out. So far, we do not know that 

no 


any considerable complaints against these remedies have 
emanated from the public. Strangely enough, all such com¬ 
plaints have come from the class whose pockets books they 
injure. 

No one would find fault with these American Medical 
Association leaders, if, believing proprietary medicines were 
a menace to the public health, or even if they were moved 
only by selfish considerations, they should try to persuade 
the people to stop taking them, but it is an entirely different 
matter when without any request from the people, they 
seek to enlist the governments of State and Nation in their 
policy of extermination. No one who understands human 
nature can be made to believe that they are going to all 
this trouble and are so exercised about the public health 
from purely disinterested motives, as they seek to make it 
appear. 

Lord Halifax, speaking of a similar class of philanthropic 
pretenders who flourished in his time, said: 

“These methods will ever be suspicious; it will never be 
a natural thing for men to take such extravagant pains for the 
mere sake of doing good to others. To be content to suffer 
something for a good end, is that which many would do with¬ 
out any great repugnance; but where a man can honestly pro¬ 
pose nothing to himself except trouble, change and loss by 
absence from his own affairs, to be violent in the pursuit of so 
ill a bargain is not at all suited to the languishing virtue of 
mankind so corrupted. Such self-denying zeal in such a self- 
seeking age is so little to be imagined, that it may without 
injury be suspected.” 

Identically the same inconsistent and dog-in-the-manger 
attitude is being exhibited toward the efforts of the opti¬ 
cians of the country to obtain public recognition and regu¬ 
lation of the practice of refraction. These leaders, them¬ 
selves, in utterances as numerous and authentic as those we 
have cited concerning pharmacy, confess that as a class 
they are profoundly and disgracefully ignorant of the science 
of optics, and incompetent to practice refraction. Yet they 
arrogantly maintain that refraction is an integral part of 
the practice of medicine, and bitterly resist every attempt 
on the part of those who are really competent to practice 


ill 


it, to restrict its practice to qualified opticians. They well 
know that under existing conditions (save in those states 
where the optician has carried his point), there is no bar to 
prevent any one from practicing refraction and that every 
traveling fakir who chooses to carry a trial case may fit 
glasses; in no State has medicine ever been able to enact a 
statute restricting the fitting of glasses to itself; yet, it 
persistently opposes the efforts of the qualified optician to 
provide for the general regulation of the practice, rather 
than surrender what it calls the “principle” that refraction 
is a part of medicine—which means, of course, that the 
people must be warned against paying their good money to 
anyone but a doctor for such service, although he knows 
nothing about it. 


i 




112 


CHAPTER XIV. 


The Real Cause of the Medical Trust’s 

Activity. 


What is the real underlying cause of all this agitation and 
activity on the part of organized medicine, ostensibly in 
the interest of the public health? In all matters pertain¬ 
ing to the industrial activities of the world it is a pretty 
safe proposition to seek for causes and motives in economic 
conditions, and this case is no exception to the rule. As we 
have elsewhere insisted, the medical man is no more or less 
than human, and his shoes pinch him in precisely the same 
spots that other men’s shoes do. The truth is the doctors find 
that their living expenses have advanced within the past few 
years and that their incomes have not kept equal pace with 
that advance. In fact, in spite of generally prevailing pros¬ 
perity, the average income of American physicians has pro¬ 
gressively dwindled until it is now a liberal estimate that 
places it at $700 a year. Only a few weeks ago, in a case 
under the writer’s observation, an advertisement placed in 
a medical journal for an assistant at a salary of $100 a month 
brought, in the very first mail, no less than eighty replies 
from men eager to jump at the chance. These letters were 
not, as the advertiser had contemplated they would be, 
from young men looking for experience, but from those 
who had been in the practice of medicine anywhere from ten 
to twenty, years, who found it impossible in their practice 
to make anything like the income offered by the advertise¬ 
ment. 


113 




Looking abroad to discover the causes of the hard con¬ 
ditions under which he labors, the physician finds a various 
set of influences at work curtailing and attenuating his 
income. Inside his own profession he finds that the indis¬ 
criminate multiplication of medical colleges, conducted both 
as money-making ventures and as agencies of advertise¬ 
ments for the faculty, results in the turning out of medical 
graduates by the thousand every year to compete with an 
already crowded calling. The Journal of the American 
Medical Association reported that in 1907 there were no 
less than 7149 new physicians registered throughout the 
country; unquestionably in 1908 the figures rose far above 
this mark. And even in the absence of any statistics, it is 
a matter of common observation that the profession is 
everywhere seriously overcrowded. 

Another cause, for which the profession is itself largely 
responsible, is the spread of free dispensaries and other 
agencies for the free dissemination of medical services 
and material that has grown so markedly in the last ten 
years. Whether this feature of medicine be in the nature 
of a public good or a public evil is not the question just 
here; it unquestionably cuts into the income of the prac¬ 
ticing physician. And it is worth remarking, in passing, 
that both this and the undue multiplication of medical 
colleges, are instances of the greed of a certain proportion 
of the profession for popularity and practice overreaching 
itself. 

A further fruitful cause of the wane of the medical 
man’s earning capacity for which he is only passively re¬ 
sponsible, its positive aspect depending upon that natural 
progress of human intelligence of winch the medical profes¬ 
sion constantly forgets that it is only a specialized part, is 
the rising tide of popular dissatisfaction with medical science, 
as evidenced in the growth of such cults as Christian Science, 
psychotherapy, hydrotherapy, osteopathy, etc. This loss 
of confidence is exactly parallel in its reason and course 
to the similar process which in the old days affected the 

114 


priesthood of the church. It is not so much a subtraction 
from the function of medicine as an addition to it, with 
which the medical profession has failed to keep step. The 
growing popular intelligence, coupled with the popular intui¬ 
tion (a force never to be lightly despised), feels that the ex¬ 
planations and methods of medicine, useful enough in their 
time and sphere, are no longer adequate for the broader 
conception of health and disease. And when the leaders 
in medicine, instead of accepting and measuring up to the 
new standards, set about to discredit and prohibit them, 
the public can hardly be blamed for suspecting that it has 
an interested motive in thus “protecting’’ by law what it 
can no longer justify by reason. 

Now, it is quite true, as we have said, that this economic 
stress is an exceedingly real and serious condition with the 
medical profession, and it is quite natural that it should 
cast about for the reasons and the remedies. But it does 
not warrant any bitter railing against the conditions them¬ 
selves or any unfair measures for combatting them. To 
meet natural competition by seeking to crush out all -com¬ 
petition is both immoral and short-sighted, a course for 
which the public will not stand, and for which it will ulti¬ 
mately wreak reprisals. The doctor should consider that 
the real causes of his position lie within himself 
as one of a class. His obstinate unadaptiveness, his 
blind egotism, his long years of priestly authority 
and prerogative which he sees slipping away from 
him and is frantically trying to preserve, the readi¬ 
ness with which he sees the mote in his brother’s 
eye while blind to the beam that is in his own eye: 
these are the things that are alienating public con¬ 
fidence from him and causing him to feel the alien¬ 
ation in the shape of the economic pinch. 


A 


115 


CHAPTER XV 


The Signs of a Coming Revolt Against the 

Medical Oligarchy 


We have already said that the unfair and short-sighted 
course pursued by organized medicine in its frantic efforts 
to retain its priestly oracle and the emoluments that go 
with it would ultimately arouse, in the rank and file of the 
profession itself and in the lay public, a storm of revolt and 
reprisals that would make the last state of the profession 
worse than the first. There are not wanting signs and 
evidences, both among medical men and with the public, that 
such a revolution of thought and attitude is actually in 
progress; and unless the medical profession’s soi-disant 
counsellors and rulers read the hand-writing on the wall 
and change their short-sighted course, the disgust with their 
methods will precipitate a repudiation of medicine and medi¬ 
cal men in which, unfortunately, much that is good and 
useful and many that are honest and conscientious will be 
made to suffer with the ring-leaders of evil. 

This is not an idle dream, born of a hostile mind in 
which the wish is father to the thought. It is sober truth, 
abundantly evidenced by the authentic published utter¬ 
ances of men of repute within and without the profession. 

With this public dissatisfaction and loss of confidence, 
we are not here particularly concerned. It is known of all 
men. We shall content ourselves with furnishing evidence 
of the revolt against the oligarchy which is now in progress 
in the profession itself; ay, even in the very ranks of the 

116 




Association. And we shall confine ourselves to the pub¬ 
lished utterances only of men of the highest standing and 
who are part and parcel of organized medicine. Impotent 
though they are under the present scheme of organization 
to exert any influence by their votes (for the members in 
general have no voice whatever in the selection of the of¬ 
ficers of the Association or in dictating its policies or con¬ 
duct), they can wield the pen and have the independence 
and courage to wield it, too—and with good effect, as we shall 
presently see. And it cannot be long before an awakened 
and enraged profession will rise in its might and drive 
these money changers from the sacred temple of medicine. 
This revolt on the part of independent physicians is the 
bright star of hope in the medical firmament at the present 
time. It shows that there are some members of the Asso¬ 
ciation who will not “crook the pregnant hinges of the 
knee where thrift may follow fawning;” and it gives assur¬ 
ance of a coming reform in the profession itself, which may 
result in its rehabilitation in the popular esteem, as well 
as in a higher and better science and practice of medicine. 

One of the most outspoken and courageous of these 
protestants is the Medical Record, of New York. We do 
not think it would be invidious to say that that paper 
stands at the head and front of medical journalism in America 
in ability, popularity and influence with the profession. It 
is esteemed by physicians everywhere as a dignified and 
conservative journal. Discussing the aggression of the 
oligarchy, a short time ago, it said: 

“There is loudly expressed disaffection with the present man¬ 
agement all over the country, from Texas to Michigan and from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, disaffection which is assuming definite 
form in the organization of new State medical societies owing no 
allegiance to the national body. There is even serious talk of 
a rival national association. The leaders in this revolt confound 
the Association with its temporary rulers—a confusion which is 
shared by these same rulers—but they forget that the great body 
of the Association is composed of earnest, honest men, caring 
naught for medical politics, and as yet barely awakening to the 
fact that they are governed by unwise men, who, wittingly or 
unwittingly, are dragging down the medical profession of the 
country into the mire of disunion. When once they are fully 


117 



alive to the dangers which threaten their organization they will 
not be slow to make a change in methods, if not in men.” 

Two years ago the Medical Standard, a journal whose 
utterances are always tempered with moderation and dig¬ 
nity, declared that: 

“The ring in control of the Association’s affairs is pursuing 
a course as foolish as it is reprehensible; it can hardly hope to 
foreclose its assumed mortgage on the intelligence and rights of 
the medical men of America, who have become very weary of 
dancing attendance on the royal medical family at the sessions of 
the American Medical Association, and weary also of relying on 
the Association organ for such recognition as the organ, in its 
superlative wisdom, may deign to bestow.” 

The Medical Sentinel, concerning the loyalty of whose 
editor to organized medicine there is not the least shadow 
of suspicion, thus characterizes the Medical Bureaucracy: 

“Quite a number of people think they are in the ring which 
controls the A. M. A. Journal. As a matter of fact, a half-dozen 
or at most a dozen people are all who know what the Journal is 
doing. 

“Reports are sent out yearly of what is done with the very 
large sums of money which pass through the office of the journal 
—about a quarter of a million dollars—which read as nice as for 
years have the life insurance reports. Other medical publishers 
can not exactly see how so much money is being expended.” 

The Texas Medical Journal, which is of a little more 
fiery disposition, is still more outspoken on the subject: 

“It was Daniel who interpreted ‘mene, mene, tekel upharsin!’ 
I paraphrase it, ‘Octopus, you have been weighed in the balance 
and found wanting’ to boss things and run the ‘mersheen,’ and 
you are up against it. 

“By reference to another part of this issue it will be seen 
that a resolution introduced in the House of Delegates by H. O. 
Walker, of Detroit, at the recent Boston meeting, asking for an 
investigation of the financial management of the Octopus was 
laid upon the table! Such is the autocratic power behind the 
House of Delegates. The House controls the Association; the 
Trustees the House, and the Secretary-Editor the Trustees. Wit¬ 
ness a resolution adopted empowering the Trustees to change 
the place of meeting elected by the House of Delegates—if it didn’t 
suit ’em. Thus the power of nullifying the action of the House 
is put in the hands of the Trustees, which means the Secretary- 
Editor—the Czar! The fact that an investigation was shut off 
gives ground for suspicion that there is something—what is it?— 
that will not bear investigation. The 23,000 members and the 
100,000 physicians not members have a right to know what is 
done with the $275,000 annual revenue and the $25,000 annual 
profit on the Journal. But they are denied this right, and are 

U8 


told to ‘shut up.’ That is about what McCurdy and McCall, and 
Perkins at first told the policy-holders. They lost their heads. 
That is about what Louis XVI told the rabble when they asked 
for bread. That is about what Charles I told Parliament. That 
is about what poor, weak little Nicholas has told the Douma. 
Charles lost his head, Louis lost his, and the Czar will lose his. 
The handwriting foretold the fall of Babylon. It foretells that 
of the Czar of all the medical profession!” 

A Southern writer in the Charlotte ( N . C.) Medical 
Journal, with the spirit of the South in his blood, perti¬ 
nently says: 

“There is a fight being made on the independent medical 
journals. * * * Now the Council on Pharmacy or its great 
admirers want us to let them say what remedies we shall use. 
Truly it is a gloomy outlook, if those things come to pass. All 
independent thought and investigation is killed. The great 
Council on Pharmacy will think and investigate for us, while the 
equally great Journal of the American Medical Association 
will dish out to us such articles as they in their wisdom think 
we should read, while (to use an expression of one of our fore¬ 
fathers) we can lie supinely on our back and do as we are told 
by the bosses.” 

The St. Louis Medical Review has this to say: 

“The independent doctor is waking up. From now on he will 
do all in his power to keep any man who is willing to wear the 
collar of oligarchy from holding any office in his local society. 
We should see to it that independent, fearless men are sent as 
delegates to the American Medical Association; men who will 
not be bulldozed, but will fight in the House of Delegates for 
what they believe will most likely serve the interests and pro¬ 
mote the welfare of the whole medical profession. There is a 
rapidly growing feeling of dissatisfaction and resentment anent 
existing conditions in our Association. The feeling is becoming 
very general, that unless the medical clique which now controls 
the Association is eliminated, the Association must suffer irre¬ 
deemable damage. The clique can and should be eliminated. 
What shall we do about it?’ 

Dr. C. A. Bryce, the editor of the Southern Clinic of 
Richmond, Va., thus gives expression to his warning and 
protest: 

“Come up a little closer, brother doctor, and let us tell you 
what is going on if you are not already posted. You have read 
and seen enough about the various trusts organized here and 
there, and you know that they live by destroying the individual 
or independent concern. They must make him their slave, or 
put him out of business—and unless they can control him they 
will destroy him. Now, if you do not know it, we will tell you 
that there is a MEDICAL TRUST, with its head at ‘One 


* 


119 


Hundred Three’ Dearborn Street, Chicago, Ill. It has a power¬ 
ful weekly publication and an abundance of money (possibly 
some of yours), and its chief business and effort just now is to 
crush out of existence every independent medical journal in the 
land, and later on when they have crushed your independent 
journal and your only defender they will whip you into sub¬ 
mission, so that you will only be allowed to read a journal that 
they print for you, and prescribe just such remedies as the 
Council on Chemistry and Pharmacy of the American Medical 
Association may allow you to prescribe. Now this is no appeal 
to you for sympathy, nor support for us or our publication in¬ 
dividually, but it is a statement of facts which you can easily 
verify if you will carefully look into the mass of literature that 
is sent to every doctor that can be reached by the manager of the 
Journal of the A. M. A., one Geo. H. Simmons, either directly or 
through one of its sub-satellites, known as State journals, one of 
which seems to have sprung in existence in this city. The 
American Medical Association at this time and its Journal run 
by this reformed homeopath, Simmons, and reinforced by its 
‘Walking Delegate’ or ‘Organizer,’ one McCormack, recently par¬ 
doned by the Governor of Kentucky for an alleged violation of the 
health laws in Bowling Green, are all at work in Virginia with the 
avowed purpose of breaking up independent medical publica¬ 
tions and throttling free-thinking physicians.” 

The following from the Medical Sentinel, is also quite 
to the point: 

“A hint to the A. M. A. Our esteemed contemporary, the 
Virginia Medical Semi-Monthly , is not noted for being sensational, 
but rather for being about as conservative as a medical journal 
established over thirty years ago would be, in old Virginia. But 
it takes decided exception to some of the work that is being 
done by the A. M. A. Journal. It regards it as being a little too 
much on the order of the oil and steel trusts—not a dignified, 
altruistic proposition, such as should be the case with a journal 
the property of physicians of the nation. It insists that it cease 
to antagonize the honest convictions and rights of a great mass 
of the loyal members of the profession. Otherwise the time will 
come, as with some of the insurance companies of the day, 
when searching inquiries will be made which may threaten the 
downfall of the now mighty organization.” 

And, finally, how well is the situation described in the 
following extract from an editorial in the St. Louis Medical 
Review: 

“Now, we notice with disquietude and regret the spread of 
an increasing tendency toward a spirit of medical aggrandize¬ 
ment. It seems to us as though history was repeating itself in 
a remarkable parallel with the aggrandizement, in the earlier 
middle ages, of the ecclesiastical power. The struggle between 
the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in England, which began 
to smoulder in the reign of Henry I and burst into flame in 
that of Henry II with the Constitutions of Clarendon, which 


•r 


120 


were passed to check the constant encroachment of the ecclesi¬ 
astical into the jurisdiction of the civil power, was the direct 
and inevitable consequence of the aggrandizement of the 
clergy. When any vocation placed in an especially philan¬ 
thropic relation to the public as a result of the public’s helpless 
dependence upon it, begins to admit among its motives for 
seeking special legislation ‘the interests of the profession,’ it is 
becoming a menace of the worst kind to the public good. 
Right there lies the spirit of ‘Commercialism,’ so much berated, 
in the most dangerous form, no longer confined to sporadic 
cases, but epidemic and virulent. In no medical legislation 
of any kind, should ‘the interests of the (members of the) 
profession’ be a motive force. The moment we lose sight of 
the fact that the beneficent professions as such are the serv¬ 
ants of humanity, that moment we become charlatans. Public 
good, and that alone, is the sole justification for all and every 
legislation along medical lines. The organ that bases, even 
partly, its opposition to any one of these crying evils on the 
ground of ‘the interests of the profession’ is in our judgment 
betraying the cause it professes to espouse and fostering an 
evil even worse than the one it condemns. So far as we are 
concerned it has forfeited all title to our respect or consider¬ 
ation.” 

We could fill a volume of such extracts taken from the 
columns of the independent medical journals to show that 
the tide has turned against the high-handed, autocratic 
and domineering clique at Chicago, and to prove our asser¬ 
tion that they neither fairly represent the profession at 
large, nor even the membership of their own association. 

Let us reiterate, that these are not our words or opin¬ 
ions; they are echoes of what is being thought and said by 
members of the medical profession itself throughout the 
country, “mutterings of the storm,” as one medical writer 
expresses it, which will surely burst unless the admin¬ 
istrative wind changes. President Roosevelt’s warning 
prophecy to the lawless rich of the country may well be 
paraphrased to apply to these greedy power-seekers of the 
medical profession, who are exploiting both their own 
calling and the public in their selfish interests: 

“If you gentlemen are not willing to accept the action of the 
conservative class, which is ready to afford protection alike to 
the rich and the poor, I will say to you now that when you have 
disposed of us by your machinations you will find yourselves face 
to face with a people which believes it has been deprived of its 
rights and a mob which does not have the least respect for 
riches. You can take your choice.” 


121 


In Germany this consummation has actually come to 
pass. Everyone knows that in that country the paternal¬ 
istic spirit is carried to far greater lengths than in any 
other civilized country, and the organized medical profes¬ 
sion there, taking advantage of it, had law after law passed, 
bestowing special privileges upon themselves, their appetite 
for such legislation growing by what it fed on, until even 
the German people, accustomed though they are to implic¬ 
itly obey the paternal mandates of the State, rose in revolt, 
and as a final result wiped off the statute books all laws of 
every description that in any way protected the practice, 
with the consequence that quackery abounds there to an 
extent to which it does not obtain in any other civilized 
country in the world. 

It cannot be supposed that the people of this country 
are any less quick to resent their own legislative exploita¬ 
tion by the medical profession than the Germans have 
proved themselves; and if the schemes of the Medical 
Bureaucracy be carried to the lengths that are sought, the 
American people will show no more discrimination than 
did their Teutonic cousins, but will lose faith in and punish 
the whole profession for the conduct of the few. 

While we repeat these warnings, and agree thoroughly 
with the prophecy they contain, we have no blood-thirsty 
desire that they may be allowed to come true. So far from 
the wish being father to the thought, we earnestly hope that 
the threatened storm may be averted. Especially are we 
reluctant to see the good men and things that belong to 
medicine swept into the tide of revulsion, and repudiation 
brought down upon the profession by the unscrupulous, 
rule-or-ruin ring that now controls the Association. Un¬ 
fortunately, however, as long as the rank and file remain 
silent in face of the doings of this powerful clique, its voice, 
as it has been arrogantly asserted “is in effect the voice of 
the entire profession.” 

We commend to the attention of the profession, and to 
its universal adoption, the sane and earnest counsel of one 


122 


of medicine’s own honored mentors, the President of the 
Medical Society of Virginia, in his annual address to the 
Society: 

“Medicine must purge itself of these reproaches or respond 
to the bar of human judgment, which is today condemning the 
false standards of commercial life, the standard of get money, 
no matter by what means, but get money. The golden calf has 
been elevated before, shall we fail to recognize the false god in 
its new semblance? Let us put our own house in order; let us 
cast out the beam from our own eyes first, then remove the mote 
from the eye of our neighbors.” 




, t 


123 


CHAPTER XVI 


The Drug Trade and Its Duty With Regard 

to Drug Legislation. 


Whatever may be the final denouement within the 
medical profession itself, or as between it and the public, 
we vigorously insist that the time has come for the drug 
trade to accept the Medical Trust’s own ultimatum, ex¬ 
pressed through its mouthpiece the California State Journal 
of Medicine , and so frequently echoed by Dr. McCormack in 
his peregrinations, “that medicine”—as represented by 
the bureaucratic ring—“and pharmacy have reached the 
parting of the ways. ” There is absolutely no community of in¬ 
interest between the present organization of the American 
Medical Association and the druggists of this country, and 
it is worse than supine, it is suicidal, to permit the Associa¬ 
tion to dictate the conditions and regulations of the drug¬ 
gists’ calling. The druggists can no longer afford to look 
dumbly and complacently on while the medical camel 
insinuates, first his inquisitive nose and last his huge aggres¬ 
sive body, into the room of the druggist, crowding out the 
lawful occupant. In short, the hour has struck for the 
drug trade of the country to rise and take out of the hands 
of the Medical Trust, with a show of the teeth if necessary, 
the conduct of its own business to which it is rightfully 
entitled, and to put an effectual stop, once for all, to the 
impudent encroachments of the Trust upon its constitu¬ 
tional rights. Too long has the drug trade been upon the 
defensive; it is high time that it took the aggressive, and 
forced the arrogant leaders of the medical monopoly to 

124 




show cause why they should not be driven from a field 
where they have no sort of right or standing. 

There have doubtless been several considerations which' 
have influenced the drug trade in its passive attitude 
toward the officious interference of the Medical Trust, the 
common factor of all of which is, that druggists have been 
too ready to accept the Trust’s own estimate of itself and 
its characterization of its own action. These considera¬ 
tions we have attempted to dispose of in the foregoing 
review, and believe that we have effectually demonstrated 
their unsoundness. 

If, for example, the motives that have actuated the 
crusade for the regulation of the drug trade had really been, 
as the American Medical Association leaders have so loudly 
and insistently proclaimed them to be, a sincere concern 
for the welfare of the public and an altruistic desire to serve 
humanity, then, no matter if a rather excessive zeal had 
been shown for humanity in the abstract and somewhat 
scant consideration for that concrete portion that comprises 
the drug trade, there would be something heroic and public- 
spirited in the quiet acquiescence of the druggist in that which 
injures his business and wounds his self-respect. And inas¬ 
much as a large proportion of druggists have been deceived 
by the Medical Trust into this view of the matter, they 
must to that extent be credited with this mistaken heroism 
and public spirit. 

But we believe we have conclusively shown 
that this much vaunted altruism and paternalism is 
but a demagogic slogan raised by the political 
clique to serve the very end which it seems to 
have done, namely, to lend the color of public in¬ 
terest to its own selfish and greedy purposes, and 
thus to head off the opposition which ought long 
ago to have nipped its schemes in the bud. Under 
such circumstances the druggists’ passive acqui¬ 
escence, instead of being sublime, becomes ridicu¬ 
lous ; instead of a public duty it is a public betrayal. 

125 


From the one viewpoint, if the druggist will not 
assert himself in the defense of his own calling and 
livelihood, he cannot expect anyone else to do so; 
from the other, if he surrenders real public inter¬ 
ests to a cunning demagogy, he must expect in the 
end the public obloquy. 

Again, if the campaign of the alleged reform which the 
Medical Trust has been zealously prosecuting in almost 
every calling but its own, and especially in that of the drug¬ 
gist, had really represented, as its leaders have made it 
appear, the united, spontaneous, and enthusiastic senti¬ 
ment of the entire medical fraternity throughout the country, 
then, even though the druggist might have had his doubts 
as to the genuineness of the philanthropic motives advanced 
(especially when he saw that not one of the blows struck 
by the bureaucrats in behalf of the downtrodden public 
hurt the doctor’s pocket book or his liberty or anything 
that is his), it might still have been the part of wisdom in 
the drug trade to submit, with what grace it could, to the 
actions of a numerous and ubiquitous class whom, in the 
nature of things, it could not with impunity resist. But 
such is not the case. 

If our analysis of the situation has shown any¬ 
thing at all, it has certainly made it clear that the 
ring in control of the American Medical Associa¬ 
tion no more represents the profession at large—or 
even its own membership—than Messrs. Rocke¬ 
feller, Archbold, et al., represent the thousands of 
individuals who happen to hold stocks and bonds 
in enterprises controlled by the Standard Oil Com¬ 
pany. That just as the Standard Oil Company, and 
similar large corporations, use the aggregated hold¬ 
ings of these thousands of persons to give them the 
necessary weight in Wall Street to carry out the 
magnates’ financial schemes, so the American Med¬ 
ical Association officials use the aggregate mem¬ 
bership of the thousands of doctors throughout the 


126 



country to give color of representation to their 
own schemes of power and aggrandizement. So long 
as they are allowed to exploit this hypothetic color of author¬ 
ity, it is a real power; as soon as it is proved to be sheerly hypo¬ 
thetical, they are robbed of their “big stick” and reduced 
to the exceedingly vulnerable condition of a few avaricious 
individuals preying upon the public. With the proofs of 
this state of affairs before it, the drug trade should find no 
difficulty in dislodging the Medical Trust from its wrongful 
dictatorship in the sphere of pharmacy. At all events it 
should let no mistaken idea of the backing of the Chicago 
ring, and no groundless fear of hurting the individual doc¬ 
tor’s feelings, stand in the way of a vigorous fight for its 
own possessions. 

Once more. If, independently of the foregoing considera¬ 
tions, it were really true that the medical profession, as 
represented by the American Medical Association leaders, 
by its high record of intellectual and moral superiority, 
had earned the right to pose as guardians and reformers 
of the druggists’ household, then the drug trade, knowing 
too well its own sins and shortcomings, however much it 
might chafe (as human nature is prone to do) at having 
them pointed out and reproved by another, might perhaps 
be commended for bowing its head meekly to the reproof, 
and profit by the chastening. 

But out of the profession’s own mouth we have estab¬ 
lished what every well-informed druggist knew for himself 
—that the doctor, both as a class and as an individual, is 
no better and no worse than any other type of man, and 
that the academic fiction that medicine includes pharmacy 
as the whole includes a part is, in actual experience, a pleas¬ 
ant farce. All of the phases of the drug business in which 
the Trust, pretending to speak for the medical profession, 
seeks to exercise “reform” and “regulation,” represent, in 
fact weak spots in the doctor’s own position. They admit 
that, as a class, his knowledge of pharmacy and drugs is so 
shamefully meagre that he can hardly write a prescription 

127 


properly (which, of course, the druggist knew all the time); 
yet they would compel druggists to give up the sale of pro¬ 
prietary medicines and throw all kinds of legal restriction 
around his business, while exempting the physician from all 
such regulation. They confess when confronted only by 
fellow doctors or when writing in medical journals which 
doctors only are supposed to read, that in their own call¬ 
ing they number the greatest percentage of drink and 
drug addicts, and that their prescription of these things 
causes the largest proportion of these addictions in others; 
yet, when talking to the people or the legislatures, they 
charge this crime on the druggists and assert the right, on 
that false ground, to wield absolute dictation over the sale 
and distribution of all habit-forming drugs. If the situa¬ 
tion were not so serious, it would be funny! 

For these reasons, fully elaborated in this review, 
we lay upon the drug trade of the country the 
necessity and urgency of taking the initiative in 
whatever further regulation of its business may be 
desirable. As we said in the beginning, it is but 
right and proper that regulation of the drug trade 
should be had, not only for the sake of the public, 
but to rid the honest and worthy members of the 
trade of competition with its vicious and incompe¬ 
tent elements. 

What constitutes such reasonable regulation, we shall not 
attempt here to outline. Sufficient to say that after long 
consideration and discussion, our Congress has put upon 
the National statutes a law designed to that end. We do 
not regard that law as without some defects, but those can 
be cured in time. It has been on the statute books but 
about two years and is now being tried out. Only a com¬ 
paratively few cases have yet come up under it, and, so far 
as we know, the court of highest resort has not yet passed 
upon it in any of its phases. That it has been measurably 
effective for the purposes for which it was intended, we have 
on the authority of Dr. Wiley, who, as we have seen in the 


128 


earlier part of this article, says that fully ninety per cent 
of the food and drugs now supplied to the people come up 
to the rigid requirements of the law. That the other ten 
per cent falls below the laws’ demands is no fault of the 
law, but simply means that the officials have not had time 
as yet to ferret out and punish those who violate it; all of 
which means that the law now on the statute books is 
sufficient for the end it has in view. That law, of course, 
applies to interstate commerce only, and though in these 
days it seldom happens that any manufacturer confines 
himself to a single State and therefore practically all foods 
and drugs have thrown around them the protecting care of 
the National law, yet it is desirable, in order that no loop 
hole shall be left for the dishonest manufacturer or dealer, 
and to make doubly sure that the internal commerce of 
all the States are properly safe-guarded, that each of the 
States enact a food and drug law of its own, as thirty of them 
have already done. 

But, in order to save manufacturers and dealers 
from harassment and needless annoyance, trouble 
and expense, all these State laws should be built upon 
the plan of the National law. They should conform 
to it as nearly as possible in all its requirements. 
The definitions and language should be the same. 
In short, there should be no more deviation from 
the National law than is necessary to adapt it for 
State purposes. 

Most of the State laws so far enacted come pretty near 
to these requirements. Those that deviate therefrom, 
should be amended so as to make them conform. And any 
laws of the kind which may be placed on the statute books 
of those States that have not yet legislated on the subject 
should likewise have the National law as their pattern and 
example. To obtain this much desired end should be the 
determination of the united drug trade. That such a result 
is not what the American Medical Association leaders 
want, everybody knows. Hence, it becomes the duty of the 

129 


drug trade to be prepared to fight for their rights and 
against the medical hierarchy which seeks to control every¬ 
thing pertaining, not only to the practice of medicine, but 
* everything relating to the manufacture and sale of all 
kinds of drugs, in its own selfish interests. 

We have seen the kind of men who are seeking to ob¬ 
tain this great power. We are aware that their calling 
gives them a standing and influence, and gains for them a 
hearing before the people and the legislatures out of propor¬ 
tion to their actual strength or to their moral or intellec¬ 
tual worth. We have seen how successfully their Walking 
Delegate, Dr. McCormack, has been pulling the wool over 
the eyes of the people in every part of the country. We 
know they have organization, brains and money and that 
all these will be used to secure the ends they aim at. They 
realize that it is a fight for their lives. They have made 
great promises of pecuniary and other benefits to their 
followers as the price of their leadership. They know that 
they must succeed or lose their fat jobs. That failing to 
win, they will have to relinquish control over three or four 
hundred thousand dollars worth of property which the 
Association owns; that they will not have the handling of 
its yearly revenue of nearly $400,000; that they will have to 
go to work and take their places in the ordinary rank 
and file of practicing physicians, a most desolate prospect, 
for they could hardly expect to earn as much in the 
legitimate practice of medicine as they have earned in 
playing their game of medical politics. Having, thus, 
all to lose, they may be expected to fight hard, and 
their warfare will, as in the past, be one of misrepre¬ 
sentation and falsehood, of appeals to hate, ignorance and 
prejudice, all carefully concealed by the cloak of a pretended 
altruism and philanthropy. We have been at some trouble 
to strip them of their false pretensions, and have shown 
them up as they are, in all their naked ugliness. It will 
be the part of the drug trade to let the people and the legis¬ 
latures see them as they are here shown to be. 


130 


For a time, therefore, it behooves all who are in any 
way connected with the drug trade to play the part of prac¬ 
tical politicians. We do not recommend the druggists to 
copy, in toto, the tactics of the Medical Trust; for if they 
do, there will inevitably grow up an arrogant and corrupt 
oligarchy in drug organization as there has in medicine, 
with equally disastrous results. 

Nor do we advocate any policy of reprisals against the 
medical ring. It is written that “he that appealeth to the 
sword shall perish by the sword,” and this wise dictum, 
verified by the history of all ages and all countries, in its 
literal application to the sword, is infinitely truer and has 
received even greater exemplification in its application to 
the law, at least where a man or a class seek by such appeal 
to advance his or its own interests at the expense of the 
people as a whole. And besides, as already intimated, it 
would be exceedingly unjust and unwise for druggists to 
wreak reprisals upon the entire medical profession for the 
sins of the bureaucratic ring, lest haply they be found to 
be fighting against their own best friends, for such we be¬ 
lieve the rank and file of physicians to be. 

But druggists may at least imitate the Medical Trust 
to the extent of uniting their forces, making an aggres¬ 
sive fight in their own interests, and taking shrewd advan¬ 
tage of all synergistic influences in the cause of justice and 
fair play. These methods are not less legitimate or less 
effective, but rather more, when enlisted in behalf of the 
right than when employed for the wrong. “Be ye there¬ 
fore as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.” The 
bogeys that have so long fooled the people and frightened 
the druggists have been exposed and demolished. It is time 
for the drug trade and the public to arise and come into 
their own. 


131 




























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